The Crumbling Wall
by JaerWolfe
Summary: Contains spoilers for a major character arc in Dragon Age Inquisition. A one-shot of various scenes between Blackwall and the Female Inquisitor.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is contains a major spoiler for Dragon Age: Inquisition. If you have plans to play the game unspoiled, go no further.

**A/N2:** I've used a lot of dialog from the game itself in this fic but I've moved bits here and there and shuffled things about so they aren't an exact match anymore. I have no real qualms with the way the game handled this particular arc. I just wanted a bit more than the game would allow...so I wrote it. Also, I moved a judgment scene from the Main Hall of Skyhold to its prison because the choice made is pretty much wasted if the Inquisitor announces it to everyone.

* * *

><p><em>"Blackwall!"<em>

She didn't realize she'd screamed his name until those in the mob hungrily waiting for a hanging…waiting for justice…turned toward her with curiosity.

He'd heard her though. Before, when he'd been speaking, he'd addressed the crowd from the gallows standing before a condemned prisoner with a hangman's' noose about his neck, looking here and there among them. Now he looked directly at her, a pained expression flashing across his face before he shifted his stance, planting his feet more firmly, all pain hidden away as he spoke words she didn't understand the meaning of. That confused and chilled her.

"No. I am not Blackwall." His head shifted to the side and an almost pleading sound entered his voice before he hardened the words again. "I never was Blackwall. Warden Blackwall is dead and has been for years."

No he wasn't, he was standing before her. The same man who'd held her that night, that wonderful glorious night when he'd loved her with a touch both rough and gentle. He was right _there_. See, he was even still speaking!

"I assumed his name to hide like a coward from who I really am."

She shook her head trying to clear the buzzing confusion. Who he really was? He was the man who'd guarded her back during a dozen or more skirmishes. The man who looked quickly away whenever she caught him staring at her, a rueful smile nearly hidden by the density of his beard. The man who'd whispered words of love and happiness as he kissed his way down her body making her shudder with need and nearly grovel with want.

"It's over." He'd turned from her now, addressing the poor sap with the hangman's noose about his neck. "I'm done hiding." For the briefest moment he seemed to pause, or maybe it was her imagination, but then he was turning back, facing her once more, his eyes unbearably sad, his shoulders braced as if waiting for an attack.

An attack from her? Why…

"I gave the order. The crime is mine. I am Thom Rainier."

The air expelled from her lungs, the feeling not unlike the force of a fist punched in her gut. Stunned she could only look at him, only stare as the words echoed around and around in her thoughts like a demented, off- key tune from a carousel ride.

But…but he couldn't be. He was Blackwall. He was a Grey Warden. He was the man who'd leaned her against the wall of the stable, almost as if he was positioning her perfectly, planning his siege with thoughtful deliberation before swooping in for their first kiss. He couldn't be this Thom Rainier.

Anger burned low in her gut and she remembered to breathe again. Of course he wasn't. This was some act…some gesture of nobility for reasons she didn't understand. Blackwall had decided this man needed saving so he was lying, telling this horrible tale as some sort of scheme to free the condemned man from the gallows.

Well, she wasn't going to allow it. She needed him…the Inquisition needed him…and she would be bloody well damned if she'd permit this self-sacrifice as some part of a twisted atonement because he felt unworthy. This was all part of his believing he could never be what she wanted and she was going to put an end to that twisted wrong way of thinking once and for all.

Temper firmly in check, she clenched her jaw, determined to charge forward and demand the truth be told…only to pause. Why not use the Grey Warden Rite of Conscription? Claim the man for his order rather than suffer a member to trade places? Why the long complicated ruse?

It must be his Calling.

Comprehension widened her eyes. Yes, his Calling. He was hearing it, knew he didn't have much time left so he'd chosen to die this way…

No, that didn't make sense, either.

But there was a reason. There had to be.

And dammit, she was going to demand it from him.

Pushing through the crowd took time and she lost him from her sight almost immediately as guards escorted him away from the scaffolding. Finally she was clear but rather than waste time running around screaming his name like she wanted to, she charged up the stairs of the gallows and faced the guard captain who'd been in charge of the execution.

A silver masque hid his face but he was shaking his head. "Can you believe it? Thom Rainier himself."

She almost stumbled, the glee, the satisfaction in the guard's voice jerking her from her determination. "You must know something about Rainier." She said, the words pulling themselves from a gut burning with an acid dread.

"I know what everyone knows." See, everyone knew this Rainier. That was why Blackwall had chosen the name. It wasn't random or…or a coincidence or… "He'll hang for the massacre of a noble and his family."

Massacre? A family? Four children, the charges had read. But this…why would he…this was insane and didn't make any sense…

"Inquisitor." Varric's gentle tone sliced through her with the sharpness of a paper cut that leaves burning, throbbing pain behind.

She shook his touch off her arm not looking away from the guard captain. "Where did they take…the prisoner?" She managed the words because she had to. Because this wasn't real. None of it was real.

He couldn't be…

"In the jail off the marketplace. If you've goodbyes to say, say them now." The guard captain shook his head again. "It's a damned mess, but believe you me, it'll be sorted out quick. Lots of people can't wait to see that man swing."

"He won't…" She began in a hot snarl but Varric pulled her back.

"Come on, Inquisitor, I know the way." He said, his firm grip on her arm letting her know that resisting wasn't an option.

"This is a mistake." She said under her breath, her mind racing. "There has to be some reason, some story that explains all of this."

Varric glanced at her and the pity in his expression sent hot, angry tears to her eyes. "Then we'll let him tell it to us."

"He can't…he's a _hero!_ He's saved your life and mine a dozen times over!" She burst out. "He's not a murderer! A killer of children! He can't…this is so wrong. So very wrong."

Varric shook his head and she jerked her arm away from him in a sudden fury.

"How dare you believe this lie!" She demanded shoving her face near his with anger. "You know Blackwell…"

"I know stories, Inquisitor." Varric cut her off but not with anger or sharpness. Just a sad empathy. "I know when the tale being told doesn't quite mesh and you have to handwave all the little details that don't add up because, yeah, the man has saved your life and you trust him. And I know when the story I hear makes sense and not only explains but _fits_." He gave a tired sigh. "This one fits."

She nearly broke right then and there. "I don't want it to fit." Aghast at the almost whimper that came from the words, she pushed her shoulders back and inhaled deeply through her nose. "It seems to me the best source of information comes from the man himself."

"They might not let you near him." Varric warned.

Her gaze hardened, her confusion buried deep under a fierce determination. "I believe they won't have a choice." She stated in flat tones and stomped toward the jail.

* * *

><p>The demand to see Blackwall took time and patience and politics. When she ran out of all three Cullen had to step forward and smooth the way for her with the commanding officers to the point where the bribe Varric offered was finally accepted and she was allowed entry to the lower cells where Bla…where <em>he<em> was being kept.

The place stank of feces and pain and despair but she didn't let it stop her. She had to see him. She had to understand. There was still a chance that this was all an elaborate ploy of some kind and if she could just talk to him, he would clear it up and they would laugh and things would be alright between them, the way they should be.

The sight of him sitting quietly on a bench, behind solid grey bars, his head bowed, his gaze on something at his feet, finally killed the last bit of hope in her. Her steps slowed and then finally stopped altogether.

There was silence.

She knew he was aware of her…as aware of her as she had been of him since the day they had met. A sort of sixth sense that had only deepened the night they'd finally become…

Briefly she looked away and literally had no idea what to say.

"I didn't take Blackwall's life." He finally spoke, not looking up at her. "I traded his death."

The deep, gravelly burr of his voice pulled at her, reminding her of how he'd whispered her name in her ear, their flesh pressed so close together and how he'd asked for more, demanded more and given it to her in return.

She closed her eyes against the memories and swallowed down emotions that were too much like grief.

Like someone had died.

"He wanted me for the Wardens, but there was an ambush. Darkspawn. He was killed." She didn't move closer. Didn't give any sign that his words were even being heard. "I took his name to stop the world from losing a good man." He twitched then, his head turning slightly toward her, almost as if he wanted to look at her and lost his courage at the last moment. "But a good man…the man he was…wouldn't have let another die in his place."

The words seemed to break the frozen feel of her limbs and she moved closer to the bars that didn't separate them nearly so much as the words coming from his soul.

"So you thought you would just die and disappear. That I wouldn't find you." A scoffing note echoed disbelief as she gazed down at him.

He still didn't look up. "I didn't want you to see me like this."

Her mouth fell open. "You wanted me to think you left me? That you were dead or worse?" She demanded. "You'd break my heart and call it better?"

"You weren't supposed to find me." A note of accusation sharpened his tone but it was dulled by his inability to look away from that fascinating spot on the floor. "You were just supposed to think I was gone."

Supposed to…to think he was gone…to not…how could he think she wouldn't look? That her love was nothing more than a spigot to be turned on and off on a whim?

Anger swirled with the grief and the pain. "You mean you didn't want me to know you. The _real_ you."

She had no idea what he heard in her voice, what prompted him to action, but finally he stood, shaking his head, approaching the bars that separated them, looking at her for the first time since she'd entered. "Don't you understand?" The words were sharper now, edged with an almost visceral desperation that she hear him, see him. "I gave the order to kill Lord Callier, his entourage, and I lied to my men about what they were doing!" He slammed his manacle free hands against the bars wrapping his fingers around them before jerking hard upon the gate, emphasizing his crimes with each discordant sound. Bowing his head again, he continued his declaration of guilt. "When it came to light, I ran."

She wanted to tell him to stop. To shut up. The lie wasn't funny anymore, the joke gone flat. Only not even she could dismiss the broken man before her as his confession continued.

"Those men, _my_ men, paid for my treason while I was pretending to be a better man!"

Pretended to be more than just a better man. Pretended to be a lover. A partner. Someone she could trust not just with her life, with her mission, but with her very body.

Shaking her head, she stepped back from the bars. She couldn't do this. Something inside her was tearing and the wound felt mortal and she could not bear to hear any more of his 'truth'.

He didn't stop. Didn't allow her the luxury of her denial. "_This _is what I am! A murderer. A traitor…a monster." He seemed to lose his fierceness as the words tumbled from his mouth, stealing what strength he had with him, leaving him to sink to his knees before the bars, kneeling before her, almost in supplication, his head bowed in anguish.

She didn't know what to say. How to feel. Her mind, her body was caught up in a hazy fog of denial and rejection and revulsion and grief. Mute, she stared at him.

"D'you know what my first thought was when I read the report of Mornay's capture?" He still didn't look up at her. "Relief. He would die and I would be free and there would be one less man to ever look at Blackwall the Grey Warden and see Thom Rainier the coward."

A scoffing noise huffed from her nose. "And clearly that was exactly the plan you followed through with."

"Are you not even listening?" He surged to his feet shouting at her. "I had just come from your arms, your warm beautiful body and I read that report again and I knew I could be free. All I had to do was let a man die and you would never know. Thom Rainier would be a name with no meaning to you and I wouldn't have to see the disgust and the hate in your eyes when you learned the truth."

"I don't hate you." She said automatically, gazing at him with wide eyes. "Bla…" She cut off the name that wasn't his and heard a bitter laugh from him mocking her for the slip. "It may have been your first thought, but I wouldn't be standing here…" _I wouldn't be hurting so much_ "…if you had followed through with it."

The bitter anger seeped from his shoulders leaving him a bent and broken man. "How could I? I took Blackwall's name, took his honor and his great deeds and made them my own. I tried to be the man he would have been…the man you graced with your love. How could I be the man you kissed with such passion knowing that another was swinging from a noose in my place?"

She closed her eyes, flushing at the reminder of their night together.

"Wouldn't you be happier thinking I was a noble man, a Grey Warden, instead of this?" His voice was even now, steady. "I would've saved you the pain of learning that all you knew about me was a lie." In that calm voice, that even tone, he delivered the fatal blow. "That you loved a lie."

This wasn't right. It couldn't be right. Her judgment couldn't have been so completely wrong. She couldn't have been such a fool. "There was truth to what we had." She had to believe that. To believe…to accept otherwise… "And there is good in you." She had seen it. Very nearly daily! In casual gestures and words said automatically, without thought to gain, that protected the weak. "I have to believe that." Because believing otherwise would destroy her.

He said nothing and took her several moments to understand he had said all he was going to. That she was left…with nothing.

Her eyes closed as she carefully built a wall around her pain, her anguish and bricked it up nice and tight. She couldn't deal with the ache of her emotions, not now. Not while she was still so confused. Still trying to reconcile the broken murderer before her with the strong and fierce protector who had loved her.

When she had herself under control, she took a single step toward him, determined not to show weakness again.

"I need to know about Blackwall. The real Blackwall." And saying those words suddenly made everything real. Made it final and irrevocable.

For a moment she thought he wouldn't speak, then slowly he gained his feet and faced her. His expression as remote, as controlled as her own as he told her of meeting the Grey Warden in a tavern, of being recruited and the acts that led to the real Blackwall taking a fatal blow meant for Thom Rainier. Then he answered her question about his crime, about who the real Thom Rainier was.

Both of them were so polite, so formal it could have been strangers speaking rather than two people who had spent a long, hot night making each other moan and sweat. Two people who had…

She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't pretend she didn't feel, didn't hurt…didn't want to throw up at her own stupidity, at letting a murderer of _children _not only touch her body but that she _enjoyed_ that touch. That even now, staring at him through dull metal bars in a damp prison ward that smelled of things foul and diseased she _still _craved that touch.

"That's all for now." She managed, turning away from those bars, from that man that it turned out she didn't know at all.

Nearly blind with thoughts that dashed about her head, she had one purpose only…get out, get away and deal with this ripping agony in her soul. She rose up the stairs once more, ignoring the guards, brushing past them in her struggle to get free of this…this place and its _truths_.

"I have Leliana's report on Thom Rainier." A familiar voice called to her, stopping her escape.

She stopped mid-step, pausing, considering running for the door only a moment before pride had her turning back. Numb, she accepted the scroll from Cullen and looked directly down at it, not wanting to see his expression.

"Give me the overview." She said in remote tones she was proud of.

Cullen summarized the report and a distant part of her noted that it actually matched what Bla…what he…the prisoner…had told her in his prison cell.

"This is helpful." She said keeping all trace of bitter irony from her voice. "Or at least educational." Well, okay, maybe not _all_.

"Don't blame yourself." Cullen said trying to meet her gaze but she successfully dodged him. "We all made this mistake."

Which mistake was that? Believing he was a Grey Warden? Having faith that he would protect her men as they struggled to support the Inquisition and its various needs? Trusting him to guard her back in battle? Allowing him to touch her body, to see places in her soul she allowed no one else…

A soft sigh from Cullen broke that chain of thoughts before it destroyed the last vestige of her control. "What do we now? Black…Rainier has accepted his fate, but you don't have to. We have resources."

Fate? Accepted his…abruptly she remembered the gallows. The warning that Bla…he would be hung quickly for his crimes.

Cullen continued. "If he's released to us, you may pass judgment on him yourself."

Pass judgment on him? Right now she couldn't even_ look_ at him.

"If it were up to you, what would happen?" Yes, pass on the responsibility to another like a coward.

Fury snarled Cullen's features. "What he did to the men under his command was unacceptable. He betrayed their trust. Betrayed ours. I despise him for it."

That was sound…that was right. So why couldn't she, why _didn't _she feel the same way?

"And yet he fought as a Warden. Joined the Inquisition. Gave his blood for our cause. And the moment he shakes off his past, he turns around and owns up to it. Why?" Ah, yes, there was the reason she couldn't hate him.

"Some part of you is impressed by what he did, isn't it?" She murmured, a half smile curving her lips.

Cullen gazed at her steadily, as if he knew the turmoil swirling inside of her and wanted to help. "Saving Mornay the way he did took courage, I'll give him that." A rueful tinge narrowed his gaze. "But I can't tell you what to do."

No. No, he couldn't. Only she didn't know what she wanted to do. She only knew that any final decision she made right now would be the wrong one. But leaving Bla…_him_ in a prison to be hanged wasn't the right choice, either.

"Have Rainier released to us." She said in firm tones.

Cullen nodded his head but his scarred face gave nothing away to say if he approved of her decision or not. "We must move quickly. I'll send word to Leliana and Lady Josephine asking for suggestions on the best way to remove him. Their contacts will be invaluable in this effort."

"Agreed. I leave it in your capable hands." She said with a nod of her head before turning on her heel and leaving the smell of death and pain behind her as she exited the jail.

* * *

><p>Another place. Another prison.<p>

Same man. Same woman.

At least the smell this time was dusty cold air from the gaping hole where half the prison had dropped off the mountain itself.

His hands were still manacled before him, even behind the bars, as if he were a dangerous criminal the guard would take no chances on. He was dangerous, she mused walking closer to the cell, this hunched over and broken caricature of a hero…of a _man._ Just not to anyone else but her.

"I didn't think this would be easy…" She broke the silence, her gaze on his bowed head. "But it's harder than I thought."

"Another thing to regret." The bitter words rumbled from his deep chest but his head remained bowed, unable to look at her.

She wasn't sure she could do this. Judge him? How…

"I know you put another man in my place. Haven't enough died for me?" He demanded abruptly, his head rising as he finally looked at her, his eyes showing the fierce glint she had become accustomed to seeing in the man she lo…

"I wish there had been were another way but my options were limited." She began in a placating tone that he immediately rejected.

"You could have left me there!" He spoke the words surging toward the bars, toward her. "I accepted my punishment! I was ready for all this to end. Why would you stop it?"

Did he not know? Was he being deliberately obtuse? Or was this just another lie, just another trick that she was too stupid to read the truth of?

"What becomes of me now?" There was a despondent tone to his voice. As if the words were simply rote and he no longer cared about their meaning or their answer.

She'd spent days asking herself that same question. Knowing that she would have to face him, that she would have to look directly into eyes that had once looked at her with such tenderness and she would have to declare his sentence.

"The massacre of the Callier family and their retainers took place in Orlais. I have no jurisdiction over that crime. That _murder_." She forced the words out, tried to make them even. "Impersonating a Warden will have those at Weisshaupt upset with you but considering you did nothing but champion their name, it seems an unnecessary step that will cause more problems than it solves."

He stared at her, his matted hair covering one eye until he impatiently shoved the strands back.

"The only crimes I can judge you for are those against the Inquisition itself." She would not balk at this. Would not falter. "We used the Treaties you handed us with a permission you didn't have leaving us on shaky ground with the legality of their use. Commander Cullen believes that after Adamant the Grey Wardens really don't have a leg to stand on, morally or legally and that no harm has come from their use. You will not be punished for that lie."

She couldn't read his face, couldn't read his eyes. Had it only been weeks ago that she had deluded herself into thinking that she could?

"It's been suggested that you remain as Blackwall and give legality to any future use of the Treaties or the Rite of Conscription. That we would benefit from the appearance of a Grey Warden among our ranks."

"So I'm to live the lie until you release me from it?" He rasped at her, his anger clear.

"Since when has living that lie become difficult?" She snarled back, losing her calm demeanor, her removed façade.

"Since the night I held you under me and…"

"Do not speak of it!" She surged forward until the bars and a scant amount of space were the only things between them. "How could you do that to…" She cut the words off, clamping her mouth shut. Fists clenching and unclenching she had to look away from him, unable to see his face, his lips, and maintain her resolve.

Once she was sure she was under control again, she raised her gaze to his once more.

"I denied the suggestion for reasons that are irrelevant." Her tone was cool again. "After consideration it was decided that any harm from your actions had balanced out against the good you had also done. The Inquisition has nothing further to judge you for."

He stared at her, his shoulders tense. "Nothing to judge me for." He repeated the words as if he didn't quite understand them.

"Nothing." She reiterated lifting her chin.

"And you?" He stepped closer to the bars, his palms wrapping about them with a white knuckled grip. "Surely there is something…"

"I will not use my position as a personal weapon." Her voice was flat and firm. "You lied to me. You let me believe that lie…_love_ that lie. You betrayed me…" The even tones shattered with what was almost a sob, but she refused to look away from him. "I will not judge you for your crimes against me. I cannot be impartial. Not now." Licking her lips she looked away from him, regaining control before staring him down once more. "Since I cannot be unbiased I recuse myself from this matter leaving the Inquisition only one course of action regarding you and your crimes."

With deft movements she used the key in her hand to twist the lock and open the cage.

"You have your freedom." Done with talking and uncertain how many more emotions she was going to flagellate herself with, she turned away determined to leave.

He caught her arm, the chains binding his hands clinking with the movement of holding her back. "It cannot be as simple as that."

Simple? _Simple?_ She'd tossed away a fortune in bribes, replaced him with another man who was hung in his stead, had him smuggled from Orlais to Skyhold like a piece of contraband, ignored her own shattered self-confidence, her flailing self-worth while struggling with feelings of love and guilt and hurt and he thought this was _simple_?

Quelling the urge to kill him herself and put waste to all of that effort, she swallowed down her pride and looked back at him carefully pulling her arm free. "It isn't." She tried to keep the vicious satisfaction at that thought from her words but the small flinch he gave told of her failure. "You're free to atone as the man you are. Not the traitor you thought you were or the Warden you pretended to be."

For a heartbeat then two he stared at her and she saw hope crest in his eyes. "It will take time." He began and seemed unable to keep her gaze, looking down once more before forcing his gaze back to her own. "You would accept that? And what I used to be?"

The words caught in her throat and she wasn't even sure what she meant to say. How she could say anything. Accept? Accept a murderer of _children_? How?

Blessed Andraste, she couldn't do this. Couldn't hear this…she had to remain in control. She had to keep it together. "Blackwall gave you the chance to atone through action, not merely punishment." The words came out smooth and even and she began to believe she could pull this off. "I find I can do no less." She tried to walk away but he caught her again, refusing to let her go.

"That can't be all." There was a plea in his voice. "You wouldn't have done all of this…wouldn't have brought me here only to let me go free…there must be…I know I lied about who I was but I never lied about what I felt." He seemed to sense her wavering, her hesitation and moved closer. "No matter what I was or what becomes of me, right now, I am just a man with his heart laid bare. I leave it in your hands."

She closed her eyes and gave up the struggle to hold part of herself back, to protect herself knowing if she opened to him again he could well destroy her with the next lie. Swallowing hard, she spoke through a voice husky with tears. "You were ready to die but I wasn't ready to let go." The words were soft and broken gave him the only hope she could manage. "Until I decide…until I can decide…your place is here."

He struggled, as if what she said gave him both hope and left him craving for something more. Finally he shook his head from side to side. "I don't know how to be with you as Thom Rainier."

Once more she pulled herself free, a bitter smile touching her lips. "Start with honesty."

He took that blow and faced her. "It'll be a nice change."

She couldn't do this anymore. "Guard!" She called leaving the corridor as fast as her legs would carry her. "Release his manacles."

She didn't look back.


	2. Chapter 2

"There's some concern you're becoming a recluse."

She jerked her eyes to the side, pretending that she had been studying the beautiful snow covered mountains rather than a shoddily built stable. "Commander Cullen." The greeting started out husky but she bullied her way to a normal tone. "I apologize for my inattentiveness. Did you need something?" As casually as she could she wiped her eyes and then finally turned to face him.

The compassionate smile on the scarred face of her Commander told her the effort had been wasted.

"To help you." He said with a lack of artifice that almost had her smiling. "There's been a distinct lack of your good humor and laughter in our councils recently. Lady Josephine is considering hiring a court jester to take care of the problem."

Her attempt at smiling was an utter failure and she turned her back on him. "Thank you…and the others for your concern. I'll be fine."

"Take it from one accused brooder to another…" She could tell he was moving closer by the volume of his voice. "Staying this long in your own thoughts is never good."

She pressed her palms against the stone balcony railing until her joints and knuckles turned white. "And do you have a cure for a 'brooder'?" Again she tried humor, tried to pretend things were alright and again she failed.

"You could try trusting your advisor." Cullen suggested. "Maybe talk to him about it."

"Talk about it?" She turned to him, her tones overly bright. "Which topic? Where I spared the life of a murderer and condemned a traitor to his place?"

"Traitors deserve death." Cullen stated in flat tones of no compromise.

She flicked a hand in dismissal. "Perhaps it's where I refused to punish that murderer for his crimes? Where I told him I _couldn't_ judge him for the murder of the Callier family, of their servants, because the crime happened in Orlais and I had no purview." She said not turning to face him as he drew closer.

"You're too harsh…"

"He stood before a hangman's noose, Commander, ready to accept that judgment, accept his punishment, until I stole him from it. Stole him and replaced him with a traitor to the Inquisition." A bitter smile soured her lips. "I traded his death with another's. How does that make me, the vaunted Herald of Andraste, any better than he?"

For a long moment Cullen was silent, his hands on the balcony next to hers, looking down at the stables just as she was. "If you think about it, Thom Rainier did die. He died the same day the real Blackwall died. His sins, his cowardice, all dying with him. A hero continued. One who did his best to fulfill the ideals, the promise of everything a Grey Warden could be. Even to offering his very life, should the call for it come."

Rolling her eyes, ignoring the moisture that threatened to fall from them, she shook her head in wordless denial.

"He was Thom Rainier, the coward and traitor who became Warden Blackwall, the warrior and hero." Cullen studied the small figures milling about below, taking careful note of a burley subject who seemed constantly looking toward them. "That man by the stables right now, he is neither Rainier nor Blackwall. Not anymore. But the real…oh, call it what you will…the real tragedy or comedy, is that he is also both."

She glanced toward him, this military advisor, this leader of her army who had started a conversation that had so unexpectedly become something more personal.

"Never a comfortable place to be, that." Cullen continued as if he weren't the one carrying on this very one-sided conversation. "Loathing the man you are. Wishing for the chance, the opportunity to prove the kind of man you can be. The kind of man you so fervently pray you really are."

A silent 'oh' formed on her lips as she faced her Commander, the understanding that he was talking of himself as much as the man in the stable settling over her with compassion.

He met her gaze with a keen expression. "The kind of man worthy of a very special woman's love."

Compassion fled against an onslaught of a freezing kind of terror. Licking her lips, carefully she spoke. "Cullen, I regard you as a good friend and have since we met. I don't think a romantic pairing between the two of us…"

"What? _No!_" Shock had his face slightly paling. "Maker, as if I'd even dare…uhn, I didn't mean that the way it sounded." He waved a hand at the narrow eyed gaze she slanted toward him. "I'm sure you're a wonderful woman and…oh, Andraste, make me shut up. I knew I would be terrible at this."

Unexpectedly a giggling sort of laugh burbled from her throat. She half caught it, trying not to offend him but the half-grin that cured his face of his usual somber intensity gave her own laughter free reign. The sound was longer and perhaps more intense than the situation required…as if she hadn't laughed in so long she was determined to get all of it out no matter how flimsy the cause.

Cullen never quite joined her in laughing, his wide smile the most carefree she had ever seen him. "I see my work here is done. It's good to hear you laugh again."

She turned to him as he moved to leave. "Thank you, Com…Cullen. I realize talking about a romantic relationship isn't really your forte."

He paused, half turning to look at her, laughing softly. "No, I would prefer to leave that sort of advising to Josephine and Leliana, they've greater skills at it. But if you want to ask me about whether a not a man can change…" He shrugged and gave a slight bow indicating he was at her service.

"And if I were to ask that, the answer would be?" She asked quickly, stumbling over the words as he made again to leave. Impatient she waved a hand in a gesture not even she could interpret. "No, not if. I am asking. Can a man change?"

The smile that gentled his normally serious expression was an odd mix of irony and empathy. "Yes, Inquisitor. A man can change."

She nodded rapidly, turning away. "Of course, of course. Thom Rainier changed to Blackwall. Silly question, really."

"A man can change, Inquisitor, if he wants to." Cullen persisted, his voice carrying the scant distance between them on the bridge. "And if he's given a chance."

Given a chance.

How? How could she give him a chance? He'd hurt her so deeply. Betrayed their love…

"How…" She turned to ask the question and found that she was now alone, the Commander having made a very stealthy, probably very smart, exit.

Was she supposed to forgive him? Forgive the mockery that Thom Rainier/false Warden Blackwall had made of her? She, the leader of the Inquisition, the Herald of Andraste, the…

Oh, Maker…

_Pride?_ Was this about her pride? About being made a fool in front of everyone in Skyhold?

Scrubbing her fingers over her face, she forced herself to face the question honestly. Yes. Yes, it was about her pride. And no, no it wasn't.

Slowly she settled to a sitting position on the balcony, her knees pulled up under her chin, arms wrapped about her legs back against the stone railing. She stared at the cracks and wear patterns of the bridge beneath her feet but her thoughts were so very much farther away.

Being in love with Bla…_him_ had been so wonderful. So perfect. She had felt so safe, trusting him, trusting his integrity and his determination to help others no matter the cost. He'd been her Knight in Shining Armor. The hero she had wanted to sweep her off her feet since her youth.

To find that it had all be a lie…to think she was so foolish, so naïve…Maker, so _needy_ and desperate for a perfect love as if she were a giddy teenager…

How many times had he tried to turn her away and she wouldn't listen? She dismissed it as his natural reserve. With eyes opened to the lie, now, in retrospect, she could see and understand the fear in his eyes that had always been there each time she had pushed and prodded him, forced him to acknowledge feelings she knew were there.

But how could she have guessed at so large a lie? Maybe if she'd known more about the Wardens she would have been warned, but that enigmatic group had always guarded its secrets with a lover's jealousy.

So her perfect love was a lie…

Or maybe…maybe that love was only as perfect as the two people sharing it.

He'd said he didn't know how to love her as Thom Rainier. Maybe she didn't know how to love him as the Herald of Andraste. Maybe…maybe they'd both been wearing a flawless façade to hide behind. Maybe they were both imperfect and guilty and maybe that made them perfect for each other.

She climbed to her feet, resolution replacing the misery of the past days.

One thing was certain, moping about Skyhold wasn't going to fix the problem…although it did put her in the perfect mood to go hunt demons. Particularly her own personal ones.

* * *

><p>She searched about in the stable, looking for him, frowning slightly until she reached the loft and bales where she and Bla…<em>he<em> had made love. As she stared out at the yard, at the workers still on the scaffolding repairing the ramparts, the servants carrying crates of food up the curving stairs to the kitchen, she felt her blood run cold. Blessed Andraste you could see most of the loft from the ramparts…_and_ from the top of the kitchen stairs…Maker, how many people had been watching that night they had made love? And she'd woken up to full sunlight without a stitch on…not even a blanket!

Her cheeks burning, she stumbled back a step coming all too close to the edge of the loft itself.

"Easy." A familiar voice as she was pulled back against a strong, broad chest. "It's a nasty fall."

For a moment she was still and then she took a deep breath turning to face him. "I know…" Shock had her cutting off the words as she drew the eating dagger from her boot and took several steps back, raising the blade in a ragged defense against the unfamiliar person she had let far too close to her.

The man before her had short, shaggy black hair and a clean shaven milk-white face save for the weathered tan about his eyes and nose.

"I thought we'd progressed beyond you wanting my death." The stranger said with Bla…_his_ deep gravelly voice.

Stunned she stared at him, searching his strong jaw line and the dimpled chin and cheeks. "That's _you?_" The hand holding the eating dagger dropped as she relaxed her tense body.

Self-consciously he rubbed thick fingers over the nude lower half of his face. "Aye. It's me."

Blinking she continued to gape at him. "I liked the beard." She said in plaintive tones, still trying to reconcile the face before her with the man she had known.

"Blackwall wore a beard so I grew mine to hide behind. To shore up the lie that I was him." He didn't flinch as he said the words this time. "I thought…it seemed important that I stand before you hiding nothing anymore, so I shaved it off."

She reached out a hand, her fingers carefully touching skin that felt as smooth and soft as worn leather. "I _really_ liked the beard."

He laughed taking her palm and pressing his cheek against the calloused skin. "If my Lady wishes, I can grow it back."

She kept her fingers there, smiling as his warmth seeped into her skin. "I wish it." She said and allowed him to use the hand he held to pull her closer. For a moment she stiffened and he stopped. Forcing herself to relax, to look up at him again, she smiled with a gentle sort of sadness. "I'm not sure what to call you anymore. Rainier or Blackwall."

A wry smile kicked up a corner of his mouth. "Not so sure myself." He said and closed his eyes briefly. "I've gotten used to Blackwall…maybe we could look at it more as a title. Like Inquisitor."

There was fear in his eyes. Not of her, she understood with a humbling empathy. But of who he had been. Who Thom Rainier had been. Who he would become if he no longer had the Blackwall name as a constant reminder.

"I have it on rather good authority that you're no longer Thom Rainier." She said quietly, studying him. "But you aren't the Grey Warden Blackwall, either. You're neither…and both."

He frowned at her. "Who told you that?"

"A man who knows what regret is…and how it can make you a better person." With a sigh she moved slightly past him and carefully sat down on the hay bales that had seen a much different use the last time she was on them. "I don't know if I can call you Blackwall." She said finally, her gaze looking down below at the half finished toy he'd spent so many hours carving.

He seemed to hesitate, not wanting to stand over her, not certain if she wanted him near. She resolved the issue for him by patting the bale next to her.

"Oh, I'm sure I can out there." She half-turned to look out the loft window…refused to acknowledge just how many people could look in…and waved a hand to encompass Skyhold in general. "Out there, I can do what I need to. But here…where there is just the two of us…" The words trailed off as she stared straight ahead trying to figure out how to say what her head was thinking.

"I'm not Warden Blackwall. I'm no longer Thom Rainier." He said sitting next to her. "I've been both. Maybe…Thom is a solid enough name. Common. Maybe…"

She looked at him then, studying his face. "You don't look like a Thom. Might be the lack of beard." She mused.

His unfeigned laughter caught her off guard and sent a strong surge of want tingling through, surprising her. She'd thought it would take time to crave his touch again.

"Not going to let that one go, are you?" He said, his beautiful eyes alight with mirth.

"No. Not that one." She agreed, serious again before she looked out at the stable below once more. "But there are other things I will let go. Provided you don't lie to me again. Especially not for my own benefit or because you don't want to hurt my feelings."

"I didn't mean…"

"It did hurt." She cut him off, confronting him, the pain she still felt, the twisting of her fingers with a red-welt agitation the only outward sign of her distress. "I woke up happy and in love and thinking there was nothing in this world I couldn't do with you at my side and you…you were _gone_. A pathetic note telling me nothing but not to look for you. I was hurt and I was scared that something had happened to you." Her voice drifted silent as she gave a one shouldered shrug.

"I am sorry." He said quietly.

"So am I." She replied, her fingers stilled. "I want…I believe…that we can get past this. I want…to try." Finally she faced him, meeting his shamed gaze. "I love you, Thom Blackwall."

"Maker, I've done nothing to deserve you. This." He cupped her cheek with his broad, calloused hand.

"Stop…you have to stop that." She said and he flinched back, jerking his touch away from her. "No, I didn't mean…not the touching me part, that's okay, I _like_ that. You have to stop telling me you're not worthy of me. I'm not the Herald of Andraste when you're with me. I'm not the Inquisitor. I'm _me_. The woman who loves you. You have to trust that love." The plea in her voice was stronger than she'd expected but she didn't back down. "You have to trust that it's strong enough to take the bad with the good. That I'm strong enough. That I love you enough."

"And what if there's not enough good to outweigh the bad?" He asked but didn't attempt to touch her again.

She considered the question for a long moment before wrapping his fingers in hers. "I wouldn't have fallen in love with a man defined by murder and treachery. I can't say what Thom Rainier…what you…did was excusable. It wasn't. Innocents were killed. Men and women who would have died for their Captain in honor on the battlefield instead died for him in shame at the end of a noose. I could never have loved a man capable of allowing that to happen."

The expressionless wall he liked to hide behind was firmly in place as he shifted away from her.

"But I don't know that man. I never met him." She continued, her voice still soft. "The man I found worthy of my love was a different man, a hero. One who did not hesitate to place himself in danger if it meant saving those weaker than he. A man who had the patience and the wisdom to train fishermen to defend themselves…and then help them gain the confidence to do so. A man who unhesitatingly followed me into battle prepared to defend not just me with his life, but those he served with, those he called comrades in arms."

"That man doesn't exist." He spoke in a rough voice. "He never did."

"You're wrong." There was no malice in the rebuttal, just utter conviction. "If I am to hold Thom Rainier accountable for his actions, then I must do the same for the man I knew as Grey Warden Blackwall."

"You can't balance them." He shook his head in denial.

"No. You can't." She agreed with slow thoughtfulness. "No matter how many lives you saved as Warden Blackwall, you can never return the Callier family and their retainers to theirs. You can never undo the deaths of the soldiers who paid for your decision."

He looked away from her, his body stiffening as if he were preparing to leave.

"By that same token, you cannot take away the spared lives of those who would have fallen had they not been defended by the false Warden Blackwall. How many over the years have had cause to give thanks that you were there when they needed you most and that you did not turn your back as Thom Rainier did." Her voice trailed away as if she were still thinking about the matter.

After several moments of silence he shifted once more, turning toward her. "And where does that leave us?"

Another shrug. "A crossroads? A new beginning? It's not a second chance…you've already had that." She was quiet, musing the question before taking a sudden deep breath and shaking herself. "Maybe it's not a second chance, but just a chance. No one ever said you could only have two of them. Maybe this is an opportunity to remake yourself once more. Not to shed the past, but to embrace it."

Frowning, he looked at her. "Thom Rainier…"

"Is dead." She cut him off. "So is Warden Blackwall. You'll need to figure out who you are all over again. Perhaps without the lies. The deception. I don't know, it's not a choice I can make for you."

"Bit tough to embrace my past without lies when it's a lie that Thom Rainier is dead. That the truth is the man hung in my place was a fraud." There was an edge of bitterness in his voice again.

"Thom Rainier is dead." This time her own tone was flat and implacable. "You should know that. You killed him, I didn't. I simply made sure there was a body to bury."

"Yes, another death on my conscience…" He began in heated tones

"Oh, Maker, get over yourself." She rolled her eyes. "Thom Rainier was a traitor and a coward. A traitor and a coward now lies in a pauper's grave with his name. The balance of the universe is maintained."

"You should not have made that choice." He stood, his fists clenched. "It was mine…"

"You were mine!" She shouted the words rising to her feet just as quickly. "Was I to let you go as if you meant _nothing _to me? Was I to let them hang you…no matter how deserved it might be…when I had the power to free you? The only choice that I was _never_ going to make was the one where I allowed you to die. You don't get the easy way out, Thom Blackwall!"

"Easy?" He repeated the word at a low roar. "D'you think it was easy leaving you? I watched the dawn rise in the shades of light on your skin! I listened to you breathe marveling that you trusted me enough to sleep so peacefully in my arms. I lost my nerve time and again deciding to go or to stay, promising myself that leaving Mornay to die would be the last black mark against my soul, so long as I could love you."

She stepped closer to him, her palm finding the smooth skin of his cheek, daring that simple touch in the face of his anger. "Mornay lives and you can still love me."

"I've done nothing to deserve this. To deserve you." The anger seeped out of him but the despair remained like a slow killing poison.

"Not lately, you haven't." She agreed and he actually smiled. "I made my choice, Thom Blackwall. I choose you. I choose _us_." She pressed her forehead against his, her hands still on his face. "Why can't you choose the same?"

She heard him swallow, felt his hands come up to hold her arms.

"I'm afraid to."

"Then until the fear is gone, I'll be here. With you."

He shifted slightly, moving his forehead back and to the side so his lips could find hers. Pressing deeper when she didn't reject or refuse him, tasting her as he gently lowered her back against the bales once more. Urgency began to make itself known then. The need to feel flesh against flesh, to remove any and all barriers between them, anything that would even try to keep them apart. She felt those clever, blunt fingertips against the soft curve of her breast and sucked in a much needed breath, joy mixing with the want as the dread that she would never have this again finally began to fade.

Then she gave a startled squawk of noise, pushing against him, trying to shove him off of her with an almost fiendish desperation.

"Wh…what?" He pulled back, his face flushed and full of confusion.

Wide eyed she stared at him. "I have a bed." She blurted in the tones of a true believer intending to convert the skeptic. "And it's a big bed, too."

His thoughts completely elsewhere, the struggle to focus on her and comprehend the words she spoke apparent, he gaped at her. "What?"

"It's up there." She pointed in the general direction. "Where people can't look in and watch us…well, _us_." This time her hand moved to the window and several not so subtle observers.

He followed her gesture and stared at the yard. "Oh." Was his articulate answer.

"Maker, I really don't want to think about someone grabbing a snack out of the kitchen and then just sitting down to enjoy the show." Her face grew hot and she used her palms to hide behind.

"I didn't think of that." He said in his slow, deliberate way. "All I could think of that night was how beautiful your body looked in the moonlight and what a lucky man I was."

"Oh." This time she was the one with the profound utterance, her hands falling away as heat of another sort rose in her. "Well, maybe we could go through the kitchen, pick up our own snacks and then I could show you that bed I was talking about."

He looked at her, a smile curving his lips until two dimples showed strong in his cheeks. "As you wish. You are, after all, in charge."

A sputtering laugh escaped her and she cupped his face again for another, lingering kiss, his hands maintaining a disappointing respectfulness at her waist. A long, both frustrating and satisfying breath later, she pulled back, her fingers stroking his face.

"Just so you know, that is utterly strange without the beard."

A barking laugh from him answered her as he pulled her to her feet and began escorting her down from the loft. "You'll be happy to know, then, that I've already started growing it back."

At the bottom of the ladder, she watched him descend, waiting for him to join her. "I am." She said taking his hand in hers once he'd stepped next to her. "Happy."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** This takes place after the defeat of Corypheus.

* * *

><p>She started from her dreams, instinctively reaching out a hand only to find the other side of the bed empty.<p>

Lifting her head, she blinked toward the cool air flow, dragging a thick blanket over her cold naked skin as she focused on the broad figure standing barefoot and shirtless on the balcony, wearing only a pair of draw-string linen trousers. He was staring out at the mountains again. Beyond them. Seeing something she couldn't see with thoughts she was reluctant to understand.

Quelling the panic, the wail of denial that welled up in her soul, she crossed her bedroom, wrapping the blanket tighter about her.

"You know, not all of us are blessed to be covered in fur." She murmured in a voice she willed to be teasing and warm instead of demanding and fearful. "You might consider that we live on the top of a snow covered mountain when you get the urge to leave me naked."

A soft smile curved lips not quite hidden behind the thick, dark bristle that was attempting to be a beard. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." He said wrapping an arm about her and pulling her close. "There is so much darkness in the world and when I think of you…when I see you…I see hope."

She let her head fall against his shoulder, her eyes closing against the spark of tears. For a long moment she was silent, fighting a furious battle in her heart, struggling to find the strength to not scream and bang her fists against the wall that had formed between them no matter how hard she had struggled to break it down.

Finally, she found the strength and spoke the husky words she so wanted to deny the existence of. "When will you leave?"

He stiffened under her touch, his breath frozen for a heartbeat only to exhale with a surge of air. "Should have known better than to hide from you." He said with a rueful humor.

"Yes." She said and couldn't quite keep the bitterness from her voice. "You should."

A long quiet absorbed the words, accepting them until he finally answered. "Tomorrow. Weather willing."

"Are…" Her voice broke then and the tears she'd been hiding from betrayed her with a silent assault, streaming down her cheeks. She swallowed back the howling demand that he not go and managed to speak. "Are you coming back?"

He turned her in his arms, then, raising her face with blunt, broad fingers that cupped her jaw so gently. "I am." He said with strong conviction. "I just need…"

"I know why you're going." She cut him off and broke away from his touch, pulling away from him.

He didn't let her break the connection completely, keeping a grip on the fingers of her hand. "Then you understand…"

"Understanding and being happy about it are two very different things, Thom." She stated, the fire in her words doing nothing to help the chill in her soul.

He pulled her close again, ignoring her half-hearted attempt to maintain her distance. "When I am with you, when I look at you…when I see the way you look at me, I believe I am a better man." He used calloused fingers to gently direct her face toward his, asking with a touch that she look at him. "I have to know if that better man is real. If that's who I am or if I'm just pretending again."

"And you can't do that here?" She demanded finally pulling back away from him again. "Move back to the stable if you need to, avoid me…"

He cut her off with a short laugh. "As if I can." Shaking his head, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. "I'm not strong enough to stay away from you. I never have been. I look at you and I want to be the man I see in your eyes. The man I don't see when you aren't there."

"So I'm the one who has to decide? To be strong?" The words were tossed with irony and watered with tears but she looked at him. "I don't want you to go."

For a long moment he was quiet and she wanted to scream at him to tell her what he was thinking, what he was feeling. What he wanted from her just to make him stay.

"Will you stop me?" He asked quietly, his expression unreadable.

"Oh, the Maker curse you, Thom Blackwall." She snarled jerking about to stalk across the room toward her clothes.

"You could. With a word. A plea." He didn't back down from her anger. "Part of me actually hopes you will."

Boots in hand, blanket half covering her, half tumbled about her feet, she faced him. "I will not be the manipulator here. Do you want me to beg? To tell you how…" She cut the words off with effort, almost literally swallowing them down before pressing the same hand that held her boots to her forehead. "I will not make this decision for you, Thom. It's everything I have in me to make it easy."

"Easy is the one thing this is not." He said in his low, growling voice as he approached her again. "Easy would be staying here, letting you shield me from the man I used to be. Both of them. Easy would be waking every morning with you in my arms."

"Then stay." She whispered, half turned away as if ashamed of the words, not looking at him.

"And offer you less than a whole man?" He took in a deep breath. "You deserve…"

"Don't tell me what I deserve, what I'm worthy of!" She snapped at him, whirling toward him, temper lost. "I deserve you! Here, by my side. I deserve to know the man I love is alive and well and close to me. The one thing I do not deserve is to watch you leave me. Or worse…wake up and find another note."

A frown troubled his mouth. "I will not do that to you again."

"But you will leave." She swallowed hard on the lonely wail in her soul and faced him with tears that were drying.

"Yes."

Nodding, she finished grabbing her clothes and moved away from him, the blanket still half tangled about her. After a mere three steps she stopped, the naked slope of her back still toward him as if she were debating some great philosophical treatise in her thoughts, her head bowed over with the weight. Then, as if the decision, the choice were made, her spine stiffened, her head rising tall and full of determination. With a thud, her boots and clothes fell from opened fingers to the carpet and she turned, still half draped by the blanket to face him, her expression noble and proud and unashamed of what she felt for him.

"I love you, Thom Blackwall." She spoke his name as an affirmation, a blessing as she stepped out of the blanket and went to him with nothing between them.

He braced her naked form against his, curving her softness against his hard mass. "I will return. I swear it." The bristle of his stubble scraped against her but she didn't pull away. "I promise you."

She allowed no more words.

* * *

><p>She'd been unable to stay away the way she'd promised herself she would.<p>

Standing on the ramparts, looking down at the lone figure riding a horse across the bridge and leaving Skyhold, tears dammed in her eyes, her expression a stony grave of hope that he would turn back and return, she finally whispered the words she would not speak. Not where he could listen.

"Don't go." She whispered with benign simplicity. "Don't leave me alone."

These were the words, the arguments, she couldn't give voice to him and retain any kind of integrity. Not while he was undecided. Not while he was torn fighting his own demons as much as her love.

"I'm afraid you'll be hurt. You'll die where I can't protect you." Stronger now. Closer to what was deep in her heart.

She'd known that he was having difficulty believing he was a good man. Believing that the man who had been Thom Rainier, who had honored Grey Warden Blackwall could be part of who he now was. She could sense the fear in him. Fear of who he was. Who he wasn't.

Fear of her.

"I'll be lonely." There was a forlorn note in the words that could not come close to expressing the wail reverberating in the empty hollows where her heart had been. "I'll be afraid."

She hadn't meant to coddle him. Hadn't even really known she could. That she so carefully deflected all barbs directed at the 'traitor' Blackwall from those few who knew. Any moment he seemed to waver, seemed unsure how he should act, respond, she had covered for. She'd seen the rising frustration in his gaze. The fear. The more she'd tried to protect him, to give him no reason that he would ever need to leave, the further she could feel him pull away from her. The more she'd told herself to stop, the quicker she came to act.

"I'll miss you."

His silence had grown as prolonged as her chatter. As they tried to pretend all was right and force things to work. To hide what so clearly wasn't working and neither knew how to fix.

She'd known he was leaving weeks ago. At first, as was her wont, she'd slipped heavily into denial. She'd become adoring and accommodating, anything that would show him how good he had it here and how nothing out there could give him what he needed here. The results had driven the gulf between them wider.

Finally, in the quiet of their bedroom, on one of the oh, so rare occasions when he was asleep and she the one awake keeping a careful watch, she had made the choice.

"I love you."

Against every instinct, every need, she'd began to steel herself. To prepare to let him go when the time finally came that he asked…or, Maker forbid, left her another note. She'd been determined to be dry eyed at his parting. To send him with love and faith. She would not cry or make a scene or fall on her knees begging him to stay. She would be calm and she would be controlled and she would be understanding.

"I'm sorry I wasn't stronger." This whisper came as the first tear spilled from her eyes blurring the figure now reaching the final gate that would release him from Skyhold proper and into the cold world.

She hadn't been stronger. She'd cried. She'd asked him not to go. She'd almost broken her firmest rule about emotionally manipulating him, coercing him to stay. There would be no cheap shots. No hidden blackmail. No passive aggressive messages. She would be strong enough to let him go.

And there would be one thing, one secret suspicion, one wished for possibility, that she would not, under any circumstances reveal.

Hope sucked in a faltering breath as the figure on the horse halted, turning the creature around, facing her. Raising a hand in salute to her. Then turning his mount around once more, he passed through the gate and out of her vision entirely.

"I'm pregnant."


	4. Chapter 4

The thing about staying alone in bed because you couldn't think of any pressing reason to get out, other than bodily functions, was that eventually it got boring. She mused over the thought staring at the far bookcase and the daggers sticking out of it. The company was depressing, too. And then there were the idiots at the door arguing over who was going to try and coax her out this time and whether or not she was out of daggers to throw yet. Silly people, she still had an entire bolero of them. There were also the throwing stars and if necessary, she could start hurling a mace or two.

Or her guts, if the morning sickness that seemed to have no concept of actual 'morning' decided to go at it again.

Enough. She was getting up. There were things that needed doing. There were decisions that needed to be made. A bath that definitely needed taking.

Maybe just a few more minutes…

She could hear the door open below and narrowed her eyes reaching for the bolero.

"That's not going to work this time." Cullen stated in muffled flat tones as he marched up the stairs in full plate mail, helm cover down.

She abandoned the bolero and reached for the mace.

"Send me up the shield." He said with determination to someone behind him. "One way or another you are getting out of that bed."

A sigh huffed from her. "Fine." She said letting the mace fall back to the floor. "I'll get up."

Cullen froze in place and stared at her. "This is a trick, isn't it?"

She glared at him. "Hardly. I was bored, anyway."

"And you decided to wait until I marched up all those steps in full plate mail to be done sulking and ready to leave?" There was now a decidedly more dangerous tone in the Commander's voice.

She turned her head toward him, hiding a smile. "I need a bath. Are you going to stay and make sure I wash behind my ears? If yes, it will be with the full understanding that I bathe naked."

"And down the stairs in full plate mail, it is." He turned back to carefully begin his descent.

For a moment she waged a silent war with herself and then with a disgusted sigh, turned toward the staircase. "Cullen…" She called

"If you are back in that bed I will not leave until it's kindling." He answered in dangerous tones.

This time she did laugh. "I'm not. I just wanted to say thank you. For caring."

There was a quiet period and then the sound of plate mail moving. "I care better downstairs in my usual uniform, Inquisitor."

"I'll be down." She answered with a laugh. "Ask the cook to fix me something? I'm starving."

"I will never understand women…" Came the mumbled but audible response.

"Buy me an ale and you can listen to me complain about men. I have quite a bit to say regarding the subject." She shouted after him.

"I'd rather be stationed at the Winter Palace." Came the retort and a quickly shutting door.

He'd been gone five days. She was surprised they'd let her be for this long, death threats to anyone who bothered her not withstanding. So fine. He was gone. Maybe coming back, maybe not. She wasn't going to spend the rest of her life in bed wailing about circumstances. She was a grown adult and she had lived a full and happy life before she met him and she could do it again.

She burst into tears she thought she'd long exhausted.

"This had better be because of you." She mumbled at her still flat stomach before looking back at the bed with a deep longing.

If for no other reason than to spare Cullen another march up the stairs she was going to leave this room. Stepping out onto the balcony seemed a good start. She took a deep breath of the cold mountain air and looked down at the valley and the army that had once camped there and now seemed to be building a village.

What did one do with an army once war was over? The Inquisition would always need the power base that a standing army had if their interests were to be maintained in Thedas, but it's presence on the borders of Orlais and Ferelden had to be making both monarchs nervous wondering what she would do next.

She could invade Tevinter. Nobody liked them anyway, all evil blood mages and slavers. Idly she wondered how many wars in the Thedas could be traced back to a bad breakup. Even Andraste's had involved one, though it hadn't started that way. Maferath had simply chosen a rather extreme way to end his marriage…and that would be the first and last time she compared that relationship to her own with Blackwall.

Blessed Maker, but she was messed up.

Scrubbing her fingers over her face, she looked down at the people flowing in and out from the Valley, in and out of Skyhold. People she had just casually considered sending to war because her own life was a screwed up muddle. No one should have that kind of power over others. The power to send them to battle, to war, simply on a whim. Simply because of a bad mood or depression…or Maker love her for the idiot she was, because of _boredom_.

Was that what had happened with Thom? Had a moment come when he was feeling down, feeling lost and searching for something, anything to give his life meaning and in that moment an offer of treason coated in patriotism and poisoned with gold was dangled before him?

She honestly didn't know. He didn't speak of those days, that decision. She had the feeling he wanted her to forget anything she knew about that incident. As if she could. That incident, his decision in that moment, had shaped his life, eventually bringing him into her own under false pretenses before sending him away again this time with a lack of them.

She could leave.

The thought sent a surge of want through her so strong that she swayed, surprised.

She could just…leave. Not forever, not permanently. No, she was the Inquisitor and she was a damn good one. There was still much that needed to be done and she would not simply dump the burden of who and what she was because her personal life was a complete shithole. But she would take time for herself. She would grieve for what was lost and plan for the little one to come and she would find her way once more. With or without him.

Her advisors ran the Inquisition well enough without her. Sometimes in spite of her, judging by the last five days she'd hidden in her room. They'd handled things perfectly well when she'd needed to go out and fight the demons from the rifts, the petty political plays needed to bring the Inquisition power and allies. The eventual fight against Corypheus. They'd handled things great while she'd taken her inner circle out on missions.

How would she go? Simply leave on another mission? Or follow after Thom?

Oh, she wanted that. She wanted to hunt him down, give him a piece of her mind, strip him bare and take him against the nearest tree if necessary. Just hold him until her world felt right again.

But this was time he'd asked for and she would not go back on her promise to give it to him.

No, this couldn't be a mission and she would not follow where she was not wanted. She couldn't involve her inner circle because they'd never leave her alone and eventually she'd come back to Skyhold just to get away from them. But she could just walk out. The way hundreds of merchants and soldiers and pilgrims and diplomats and spies all walked in and out of Skyhold every day. She could just stop being the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste for everyone who met her and be the anonymous nobody that she had once been. Just for a little while she could remember what it was to be herself.

She whirled back into her bedroom heading directly to her bureau flinging the doors open as she started searching through the clothing and armor. She had to have something that didn't scream 'Inquisitor' in her clothing, something that would allow her to walk past her inner circle, her advisers, her soldiers and her followers unknown. Something plain but good quality that…where had most of this stuff come from? Had she ever even worn that purple formal dress? Why on earth would she want yellow plaid pantaloons let alone put them on?

Useless. Nothing.

Scowling, she glared at her wardrobe and considered the problem. What she needed was a streak of generosity, she decided after a long moment. She needed to give her things…trade them really…with the poor pilgrims who came with so little on their backs through the cold mountains. Leave them with her flashy, expensive easily noticed clothing while taking their mundane, nondescript items in trade. Except she wouldn't force the plaid yellow pantaloons on them. They'd suffered enough.

Bath. Clothes. Ask the Kitchen to send her lots of food that would be packed away.

She could do this. She could leave. Let the Inquisition muddle on for a short time without her.

Where would she go?

Her thoughts considered the memory of the maps from the war table, the various territories and different countries. Perhaps not Val Royeaux. There was the child to consider. She'd spend most of the time travelling and wouldn't arrive until she was heavy and nearing her due date. No, she needed to choose wherever she was going to be close by, that way she could return to Skyhold either quickly if she was needed or, if not, eventually long before the child arrived. This likely meant Ferelden. Maybe the Hinterlands? Maker, she'd spent so much time there she might as well have moved in. Which made it the last place she would want to go. Folk had become very familiar with her during her time there. They'd certainly recognize the Herald of Andraste. Crestwood? Same problem.

Wait, Honnleath, on the border of the Hinterlands. It wasn't even that far away. Cullen was from Honnleath. She'd never been there as the Herald or even her normal self. Cullen didn't write home so his family would have no knowledge of her if any of them were still there. No, wait, she was pretty sure his family had moved somewhere else. Good. Even less chance that someone would recognize her. She could just be one of the many displaced from the war searching for a new home.

A smile curved her lips. Honnleath it was.

Feeling more like herself than she had in weeks, she headed for her much needed bath.

* * *

><p>"Oh, grandmother, this won't do at all." She had her fingers at the coarse knot of the old woman's cloak, undoing it and pulling it free before swirling her own fur-lined luxury over the thin shoulders.<p>

"Bless you, Herald." The woman whispered, her fingers clutching at the Inquisitor's in gratitude.

She was a complete and utter fraud and the Maker would punish her for it.

The crowd of pilgrims gathered in a small camp run by the Chantry was full of the shivering and cold. At least they had food. The Chantry sisters had already informed her that blanket supplies were on the way and no one would go cold tonight but that didn't salve her conscience any. She hadn't even known they were here except in a vague way. Now the only reason she'd noticed them was because she wanted their clothes and the moment she had them she would leave them, leave the adoration and worship that made her so uncomfortable.

Word of her presence was running swiftly through the camp causing a surge toward her that was unnerving…and alarming. Her guard kept trying to push them back but that would have defeated her purpose. Instead she reached out and traded a worn but very serviceable homespun tunic for her embroidered velvet. Shoving her prize into the bag at her hip next to the cloak she now owned, she smiled and nodded her way through the crowd searching for someone with feet like hers.

A skinny, tall boy flirting with the beginnings of puberty and carrying a dirty toddler shoved his way forward. "Herald! A blessing, your worship! A blessing for two orphans!"

Hmmmm, nice shoes the orphan was wearing.

"Poor thing." She reached out and grabbed his arm before he could either get shoved or pulled away. "The terrible things you must have endured. I can't bear it. Give me your shoes."

The boy gaped at her.

"Here, take the kid." She pulled the toddler out of his arms and shoved the child at her nearest guard. "Shoes. Now." She snapped her fingers before going to her own lacings.

He scrambled to get them off pulling filthy feet from their depths. "Your graciousness knows no bounds, Herald. I am unworthy…"

"Please don't ever say those words to me." Her tone started out angry and she had to force a softness to them through gritted teeth. "We are all equal in the eyes of the Maker. I'm sure one of the Chantry knows a verse about it…" She handed over her own boots, thankful for the thick socks she wore as she accepted his old pair and slid them on. Not bad. They'd do for her disguise to get her out of Skyhold unnoticed and then she could put a pair of her own back on.

"My baby! Where's my baby?" A scream came from the back of the crowd.

"Mam?" The toddler drawing pictures with drool on the chest plate of the soldier she'd shoved him at answered the cry looking up and about. A trembling frown puckered her lips. "Mam?"

Narrowing her eyes, she looked back at the orphan boy who was now trying to sneak back into the crowd.

For the love…

"Grab him." She ordered with casual annoyance as she took the child from her guard and began walking toward the franticly searching woman.

"She could have been my sister!" The boy shouted as the guard grabbed him and followed her. "Looks just like 'er! Spittin' image o'me mother!"

"You said you were an orphan." She reminded him in dry tones.

"If me mother were alive." The boy quickly corrected. "I mean, if 'our'..." Finally he made a disgusted noise and simply glared, shutting up.

She passed the child over to the now ecstatically relieved mother, told her what a beautiful child she had and sent her on her way with several coins before turning back to the boy. "Are you really an orphan?" She asked with mild curiosity.

"I swear before the Maker, may He strike me…"

"Please don't ask him to strike you down while I'm standing next to you. I'd rather not risk it." She cut the boy off with a wave of her hand and noticed he'd yet to put her boots on. "What were you planning on with my boots?"

Wide eyes looked up at her. "Boots…_holy relics_ from the Herald of Andraste Herself? Do you know how much folk will _pay_ for these?"

She smothered the smile that wanted to creep across her lips. "You were planning on selling my boots?" She stared at the young man with one brow raised in sardonic amusement.

"Just the one, your Blessedness. I swear it." Earnestly he nodded at her.

Shaking her head, stifling a laugh she turned away. "Take him to the Commander and tell Cullen to find our young 'orphan' a worthy occupation." She ordered one of the guards that never seemed far from her.

"Yes, Herald." The soldier saluted and began pulling the boy away.

"Wait…" Frowning slightly, she studied the boy considering his last words. "Just the one boot? What were you going to do with the other?"

Tears began to flow from round eyes as his lips began to tremble. "I was going to save it for myself, Blessed One. A token of devotion that would forever remind me of your generosity and my own unworthiness."

Both eyebrows rose. "Never mind taking him to Cullen." She directed toward the soldier, shaking her head to the negative.

"Oh, Blessed One!" The boy fell to his knees before her, clutching at her pant legs and bowing. "Such mercy and kindness!"

She snorted. "Anyone who can lie with such a sweet innocence would be wasted on the Commander. Take him to Leliana instead. She can put his talents to much better use."

The soldier didn't bother to hide his grin. "Yes, your Worship." He said and pulled the now indignant nascent teenager away.

Okay, she had a cloak, boots, tunic…that would be enough. A dark pair of her own pants would be hidden mostly by the cloak, and really, she'd rather risk that than put on anything she was seeing around her.

Food, blankets and supplies and she was ready to leave.

To keep up appearances she took her time strolling the pilgrim camp, her gaze looking over Skyhold as she smiled with absent minded grace at those who called out to her. She loved this place. The battered and worn bones of the Keep that had been cleaned up and made proud. There was still work to be done, changes that would take place while she was gone, old, battered walls and ceilings made like new again. She would miss this place…miss her home. She always did when she left.

The crowd seemed to sense they were losing her attention and surged forward pushing and shoving against her guard until they succeeded in knocking her from her feet to a knee. A panic began as soldiers reacted instinctively by bodily tossing people away from her trying to give her space to get back up and protect her from the mob about her. Confusion reigned and they all began to press in on her, shoving her further to both knees, the first traces of fear surging through her.

"Enough!" Cullen's authoritative voice bellowed as he led more soldiers into the mercy camp. "Get back from the Inquisitor! Now! You soldiers, do you understand what the word 'guard' means?"

She climbed to her feet, accepting the hands of the soldiers about her, shaking her head. "I'm fine, Cullen. I think my plan to distract myself by serving others has been a bit of a failure, though."

"Is that what this was?" He demanded, his expression fierce. "Lady Inquisitor, you should have consulted with your advisors before…"

"Yes, well, I didn't expect it to be like this and a lecture is only going to drive me back to my bed." She cut him off with wave of her hand.

Cullen closed his mouth with a snap.

"I'm hungry. Did the cook send food?" She asked brightly.

"You know, I can have Blackwall brought back here in chains if need be." Cullen offered after a thoughtful pause. "I've arranged it before."

She tried to laugh and instead felt tears rise. "No, no. No. I'm good. I think I'm done with the pilgrims, though. Let's get back to the Keep."

With a sigh he nodded and fell into step beside her. "He does love you, Herald. You know that, don't you?"

"No, Cullen. I don't." Her voice was low and trembled. "If he loved me, he'd be here." She sucked in a deep breath and put back her shoulders. "Regardless…I don't think I'll be taking a trip into the masses any time soon. I've learned my lesson."

"Thank the Maker." Cullen muttered.

That evening, a pack slung over her shoulder, half hidden by an empty cart, she walked out of Skyhold and began her journey to Honnleath.


	5. Chapter 5

She stood before him, proud and fierce, so much the beautiful warrior priestess he had forbidden himself to love and like so many other things, he had failed at. Her eyes were full of scorn, her lips curled in disgust, as if he were something to be scraped from the bottom of her boot and forgotten once the stench had cleared.

"Love a man like you?" She sneered at him, her head shaking. "Maker, I barely have the strength not to vomit in your presence."

"I know I lied…" He tried to explain, to beg her forgiveness.

"Lied? That was the least of your crimes!" She tossed her hair, arms crossing over her chest. "Innocent blood…the blood of children!...stains the ground at your feet and pours from your hands! And you think I could forgive this? I deserve so much better than you. Why was I such a fool not to see it before?" She turned away from him then, leaning her wonderful, beautiful curves against the nebulous form of a chevalier in armor that glistened in the light, unstained and unsullied.

"Please, I never meant…"

"A noble man, a warrior who has never run from duty, never hidden in the shadows. That is what I want." She smiled with love at the figure he couldn't quite make the features out of enough to identify. "I am the Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor. A light to the people. I can't be dishonored with trash such as you."

"This…this isn't…" He tried to focus his thoughts, to find some argument that would convince her. "I love you…"

"Love? What does a murderer know of love?" She scorned him again. "I never loved you, Thom Rainier."

"NO!" He shot up in his bedding, reaching out for her form as the nightmare fled and the reality of the cold forest night settled in about him.

A dream. It had only been a dream.

Maker forgive him, he thought as he scrubbed his hands over his face, still trembling with the force of her scorn. "Blessed Andraste." Shoving at the blankets, he rose from his place near the burning coals of the campfire and walked toward the small stream he'd chosen to spend the night near.

The cool air soothed his panic heated flesh and without hesitation he knelt, shoving his hands into the icy water. One mouthful and then another and finally the burning acid taste began to fade from his mouth and throat, the wetness splashing over his beard and running down his chest. Not content, he lowered his face to the water and began to cleanse the remnants of his fear, both hands splashing and then scrubbing his face. Shivering now, the cold finally chilling him, he returned to his warm bedding, crawling in. He tossed several more pieces of wood on the coals before finally laying back down, wide awake and staring up at the stars flickering in the clear moonlit night.

Sleep held no appeal, but he closed his eyes anyway, using his memory to conjure up his second favorite vision of her, her muscled body naked and perfect in moonlight that lit up her scars and blanketed her soft skin leaving nothing shamed, nothing hidden.

No, the shame had been all his, the secrets blackening his soul.

He'd meant to tell her before their first night together. Before things between them deepened. He'd meant to risk the ultimate fear, the so deserved possible rejection and explain to her who he had been. Who he was. What he was. Instead the bastard Thom Rainier had once more reared his yellow hide and courage had shriveled to cowardice. Another sin, another stain. Taking her love, her body, her passion with a lie on his lips and another locked behind his teeth.

He'd expected death. Longed for it. The Maker had devised the perfect misery to place him in instead…letting him earn the love of so wonderful a woman under the falsehood of another man's name, another man's heroics and then being forced to walk away from that love to save someone he had wronged.

Ah, but she was a fierce one, his lover, his heart. Her strength humbled him. Her determination to fight for what she considered hers, even if it meant confronting lies he had so wanted to be real for her.

Seeing her through the bars of the prison in Val Royeaux had broken the last illusion he had that he was a better man, that he had somehow atoned for the murders, the treachery and the betrayal he had committed against innocents, against those who had looked to him for loyalty and leadership. Had destroyed the last shred of hope that he was worthy of her.

No matter how many times she told him, he had never been able to believe she could find him admirable. Thom Rainier had been a murderer, a coward and a fool. Warden Blackwall had been a hero, a stalwart and a worthy man. No matter how many times they told him he was neither, he knew better. The coward Thom Rainier was still there. Still laughing. Still fucking up what should have been clear, good choices.

Like staying with her. Touching her. Hearing the soft moans and cries she made when he loved her.

Shifting to his side, he turned his thoughts away from the happy torture of his memories, a punishment and a blessing both. Staying with her, pretending he was who she thought he was, pretending to be Thom Blackwall when he knew the truth, when it burned like acid in his gut and poisoned his thoughts, knowing the longer he stayed the more he would taint her, would bring that beautiful, fierce, honorable woman down to his level, he'd made the only choice he could.

He'd been such a fool to promise he would return. A promise that had seemed so easy to commit to when he stood warm and happy in the security, the softness of her arms. A curse now that he was away from her with no one to call him a hero's name, remind him of a hero's duty and keep the coward Thom Rainier at bay. And wasn't he a coward? To consider breaking that promise and never returning to see the love in her eyes eventually turn bitter and wither with hate? To only consider keeping his word because he could not imagine never touching her again. Never hearing the panting joy he could rise in her.

He wasn't strong enough to stay away and he wasn't worthy of being with her. To very incompatible needs.

Settling down to an exhausted, troubled doze, he wondered which of the two would win.

* * *

><p>Maker, she'd forgotten what it was to be alone.<p>

The good kind of alone where no one was demanding decisions from her or praising her or bowing or dancing words with her for a political gain. This had been her life before the Mark. Before the Conclave and Haven. Before a man with a false name entered her life and her heart.

Although, technically, she wasn't alone.

Her back propped up against a wall on an inn floor, she ignored the snoring and farting of her fellow travelers as she tried to settle down for sleep wrapping her cloak, one of her own and not the pilgrim's that she'd traded, about her more securely, fingers brushing lovingly over the ornately carved ironbark clasp Thom had gifted her. She had the funds to buy a private room, but she didn't want to be remembered. Or worse, targeted for robbing because they thought she had three coppers to steal. A space on a filthy floor was cheap and no one much paid attention. A few hours of sleep here and she would be on her way again. The horse she had bought several villages back was an old, worthless nag barely worth the copper she'd paid for it, but it beat walking and one look at it gave the impression she had nothing worth taking.

Of course, this entailed her actually sleeping instead of stewing over matters she couldn't control.

Should she have told him about the child? Maker, she hadn't been sure, not then. Would it have seemed a trap? Would she have wanted him to stay for a child when he wouldn't stay for her…or worse, left them both?

No. She'd known why he was going. She'd understood and she'd let him.

She just wasn't sure why she stopped believing…if she had ever believed…that he was coming back. Not to her. Her love hadn't been enough to help him, to heal him. Why would he want to come back to something so lacking?

Honnleath would be a good place, she told herself firmly. She would be happy there. A small village. No pressure from politicians and petty tyrants demanding her attention. No pilgrims on a holy quest to touch her seeing something in her she could never be and felt like a fraud for even allowing the illusion of. She would just relax and find her center again and then she would return to Skyhold a better leader, a calmer one.

Really, things would work out just fine. She wouldn't be gone long…and eventually Leliana and Cullen would find her, probably sooner rather than later. They were both very good at what they did. Part of her even felt bad for making them search but she had needed this time, needed to be herself again so badly, needed to accept the changes and challenges in her life. An absent lover. A child on the way.

Would it…the little one, the little maybe person, would she or he look like Thom? Would that be bitter or sweet to her? Did it matter? She would protect this child. This part of her that was all that was left of a forlorn hope. After all, she was hardly the first woman in the world to raise a child without a father. Look at Morrigan and Keiran.

She flinched remembering when she'd asked about the child's father and the sorrow that had shadowed the witch's face. Too well, she understood now just how insensitive she had been. How nosey.

So…she could do this. She was free, she was healthy. The future before her was bright and she would embrace it and the change.

Lowering her head to her forearms, braced on her knees, she closed her eyes and ignored the moisture leaking from them as she repeated the mantra over and over again.

* * *

><p>Amusement curved his lips as he dismounted and tossed the reins of his horse to the stable boy. His gaze was on the voluptuous woman taking up much of the open doorway dressed in a whole lot of mostly nothing and giving him a very welcome smile.<p>

"Well, well, if it isn't our favorite Warden." She drawled sauntering up alongside him, indolently wrapping a see through shawl about her rouged breasts. "Come to stay a bit? Tessa'll be pleased."

"Lovely as ever, Apryl." He pulled his pack off the mule and then turned it over to the stable boy as well. "Tessa's still about, then?"

"Look up and see your dreams, lover." A husky voice called and he looked up to the second story of the brothel and the barely covered woman hanging out the window. "Have you come to make me smile, or will any girl do? You know your money is no good here."

He kicked the mud from his boots near the door. "Part of why I came, Tessa, girl. Give me a room that's been cleaned sometime this year?"

"Ooooh, gotten picky have we?" She laughed and started to pull back. "Well, never let it be said that Tessa's Dance Hall didn't give a man his pleasure. Come on up."

This, he thought, as he entered the brothel, would do very nicely in driving the thoughts of a certain woman far from his head. Surrounded by soiled doves who could in no way compare to the woman haunting his dreams and his every waking moment, he would be able to keep things separate. Keep his memories of her bottled away and remember who he was before he met her. Both of the men he had been. Then he would be able to figure out who Thom Blackwall was and hopefully who he wasn't.

Disentangling himself forcefully from the gauntlet of Tessa's girls, most of them barely waking though the sun was high in the sky, he persisted on to table near the bar, deliberately sitting with his back to the stage and the entertainment already beginning to perform.

"Thought you got religion or something." Tandy, a tall and dusky skinned Qunari offered already placing a brimming ale before him. The horns on her head curved around and forward and had been filed to fine and deadly points that Thom had seen her use to great effect on troublesome customers.

"Something." He mumbled taking a long drink. "You had any more trouble from those noble brats?"

"Not since you put the fear of darkspawn and conscription into 'em." She said with a laugh. "Hungry? Meday is still working the kitchen."

"Meday." He let out a heartfelt sigh. "I used to dream about his breakfasts. The eggs and sausage."

Tandy gave him a wink. "I'll take that as a yes." She laughed and disappeared around the corner of the bar.

"Been plenty of my boys and girls who've dreamed a bit about your sausage, Warden." Tessa said in a bawdy tone sliding one hand over his thigh and toward the juncture of his thighs.

Thom caught the hand quickly and gave her fingers a friendly squeeze before moving her to safer territory on the bar. "You had any trouble, lately, Tessa?"

Curious, she gave him a lengthy study and then laughed softly. "So that's it." She shifted her hip to sit on the stool next to him. "You're not looking for trouble, Blackwall. You're running from it. What's her name?"

He looked away. "I came here not to think about her, Tessa."

"One for me, Tandy." She tapped the bar as the big Qunari returned to her bartending duties. "Not just a fling then. Someone's taken a good hold of your heart."

"Tessa…" He began with a deep inhale.

"Just tell me…did she kick you or did you run?" The madam asked tilting her head to the side to study him better.

He didn't answer, taking a long drink of his ale.

"You ran." Briefly Tessa glanced away as her name was called near the front of the establishment. "I've seen you face down a pack of mercs with a bloodmage and not flinch, Blackwall. She must be something else to scare you this badly."

He set his mug down. "She's everything, Tessa. Everything I want and everything I don't deserve."

"Bullshit." Tessa said stepping down from the stool. "And if she didn't tell you that herself, you must have slunk out in the middle of the night like you do."

Color stained his cheeks. "That's not what happened. Not the last time."

Tessa laughed and patted his shoulder taking up the drink that Tandy passed over to her. "Eat, Blackwall. Get drunk. Sing some of those sea-chanteys you know so well. I've missed you." She strutted off as gracefully as she'd come.

For the first time, Thom considered that seeking refuge in a brothel may not have been one of his brightest ideas.


	6. Chapter 6

She threw up what little breakfast she'd managed to eat while on her hands and knees in ditch just off the worn path.

Panting, she wet her mouth with the water sack and then spit the acid bile from her mouth before settling her shaking form back on her heels and trying to decide if that was all she going to hurl or if she had a couple of more good bouts in her.

Apparently there were a couple of more.

Once done, this time for good, she thought, she crawled her way to a nearby tree and leaned limply against the scratchy bark, exhausted. Panting slightly, her face dripping sweat even though she shook with cold, she remembered her nice, large, warm bed in Skyhold and wondered just what in the burning flames of Andraste's pyre she had ever been thinking to leave it.

"Child, you have got to stop this." She finally spoke out loud, a habit that was becoming more regular the more she was on the road. "Mommy can't travel if she's throwing up all the time."

There was no answer, of course, and after several minutes she felt capable of drinking more of the water. Maker, but it was a good thing she hadn't been pregnant during the whole Save Thedas from Corypheus thing. Somehow she didn't think pausing in the middle of a fight because she had to throw up would have gone over very well at all. Although the thought of vomiting on Cory would have had its own appeal.

Settling enough she actually bear the thought of food, she pulled a wedge of bread from her pack, the last of her loaves from Skyhold. The slightly stale crust soaked in her mouth until gummy and she swallowed. Repeating that several times helped ease the nausea until she was ready to rise and approach her horse again. Since the thought of riding had the potential to set her off again, she simply tugged the reins and began pulling the ancient horse forward.

There it was again. The shadow out of the corner of her eye. Dammit, she thought she'd succeeded in sneaking away from Skyhold better than that.

"You might as well come out. I'm getting a bit tired of this little stalking game you've going on." Her voice carried down the path as she halted the nag and looked back.

Nothing moved for several minutes.

"If you don't come out now, I will assume you are hostile and act accordingly." Her voice grew colder and she stepped away from the horse preparing to fight if necessary.

A scrawny figure pulled out from the dark foliage just off the path and hesitantly looked over at her. "I'm not a threat."

"I've heard that from people trying to kill me before." Her tone was uncompromising. "Who are you and why are you following me?"

"You don't recognize me?" He stepped forward into the light more, his scarred and battered face showing more hesitation than hostility. "I don't suppose you would. You were focused on him more."

Frowning, she studied the worn clothes scarcely cleaner than the man who wore them and the too skinny frame that seemed to barely remember food. "I'm sorry. I meet a lot of pilgrims. As much as I would like to, I can't remember all of them." She relaxed and motioned him forward. "Are you hungry? I have food. And a cloak and shoes you look like you could use."

A faint, bitter smile curved his lips. "No. I'm not a pilgrim. I was a prisoner. They were going to hang me."

Tension seared through her as her guard rose once more. "Mornay." She breathed the name as the memories crashed through her with a chaotic tumble of fruitless denial. "I do remember you." Surreptitiously she made certain her weapons were available. "How long have you been following me? And why."

"I wasn't sure it was you at first…the Inquisitor. The Herald of Andraste." He began moving closer to her but his body language was all fits and starts, as if he wasn't entirely sure where he should be or what she wanted of him. "I saw you at the inn last night. You were sleeping on the floor, so I wasn't certain, but I watched you." He finally stopped advancing altogether. "I saw the Mark and I knew it was you."

"I repeat…why are you following me?" Her voice didn't soften at all.

For a moment he was quiet, looking away from her, his scar marked face looking closer to sobs than anger. "I want to know why. I want to understand. I _need_ to."

"Understand what?" She persisted even as her temper began to rise. "I can't help if you don't…"

_"Why did he save me?"_ The words were screamed. Fists clenched, he began making a half step forward and then pausing to stop and step back and then move into a circle as if he had no clear direction and didn't know where to go. "He was free. He was safe and he stopped them and took my place. They hanged him instead of me!"

Well, shit.

Sighing, she loosened her stance once more. "You mean Bla…Thom Rainier." She winced over the name, shaking her head slightly in remonstration.

"I was his Lieutenant! He gave us the orders and we followed them! Then he ran like a coward while they hunted us down!" Again the words were loud and full of frustration and pain. "He was our Captain! We would have died for him!"

"Some of you did." She said quietly, her expression bleak. "Just not in an honorable way."

"But he came! Why for me and not for the others? Why did he come at all?" Now he darted forward several steps coming to halt just shy of her as she held up a warning hand, the other very clearly ready with a weapon. "Please. He's dead. I don't…I need to understand. You knew him. You were there…you..._you_ let them hang him! Why would you do that?"

Well, wasn't that a loaded question. "Because Thom Rainier needed to die." She answered firmly still keeping a careful eye on him.

"He was a good man!" Mornay's fists clenched.

Another sigh. "Mor…look what was your first name again?" She wanted to calm him down, ease the distress he was under that was making him unpredictable.

"Cyril." He said. "Cyril Mornay. I was his lieutenant. His second in command."

"Cyril. Hi." She smiled. "Look, you have questions and I would really like to be out of this patch of wood before dark. Will you walk with me? I have food."

"I haven't eaten much lately." He said in a plaintive tone looking away from her as if that fact shamed him.

Maker, as if she couldn't tell simply by looking at him. "Here, you look cold, too." She pulled the worn but still serviceable cloak she'd traded the pilgrim grandmother for what seemed like years ago out of her pack and carefully wrapped it about his neck. "What have you been doing since…since they almost…hanged you." Her voice faltered as if she realized she really didn't want to know the answer.

He hugged the cloak tight about himself, but his expression said his thoughts were much further away. "I had to see him, the Captain. I needed to know why. But they wouldn't let me. Then they hanged him."

"Why what?" She asked quietly taking a wrapped wedge of cheese from her pack and offering it to him with several dried apples and pears.

Mornay stared down at the food she placed in his hands as if he had never seen them before. "I don't know." He finally answered.

Maker, Thom, what did you leave for me to clean up? She thought shaking her head. "Come along then. I'm not in a rush so if you'd like to walk with me we can talk about it."

"You knew him. Well." Mornay suddenly said, the words decisive as he took his first bite, devouring half an apple.

"Some days that's a curse rather than a pleasure." She said, her voice unbearably tired.

Maker's Breath, wherever Thom Blackwall was right now, he'd better be as miserable as she was.

* * *

><p>He shouldn't have been surprised that the block of wood in his hands had started to take on her shape, her curves. After all of the hours he'd spent studying her, mapping her with his fingers, storing every arch, every slope and shadow, every jut in his memory, knowing someday she'd be gone either through his actions or her finally giving up on him. Some day memory and this block of wood would be all he had of her.<p>

Leaning his back against the back wall of the brothel, he considered the lumber in his hands, choosing his next slice.

"Pathetic." Tessa sauntered near him, her eyes running a critical look over the women and men stripping their clothes off on the stage. "All the warm flesh around you and you've eyes for nothing but a piece of firewood stolen from the kitchen."

"It has a higher purpose than cooking your dinner." He responded with a smile that was here and gone just as quickly.

"You've yet to tell me her name, this woman you're pining for." Tessa settled next to him, her attention still darting about the room, searching out trouble or problem areas.

"Don't ask, Tessa." There was the hint of a warning in his voice as he chiseled the slope of a forehead in the wood.

She studied him then, focusing her full attention on him. "You're not even getting drunk. You sit there, stare at the mug, ignore all the girls I toss your way and look miserable. It's not a good look on you, lover."

He didn't answer, simply focused on smoothing the grain he'd exposed, planning the arch of her eyebrow. Sighing, Tessa pulled herself to her feet, carefully pushed the paring knife he held out of the way and settled onto his lap.

"Tes…" He began only to have her wide full mouth seal over his.

Outraged, Thom stood, dropping knife and wood, his hands carefully grabbed Tessa's arms so she wouldn't fall, but pushing her back at the same time letting her get her feet under her. "Don't do that." He ordered in gruff tones.

"That answers that question. Well, one more…" She reached between his legs and took a firm grip. "Ah, so you haven't lost them at all. Bit bigger than I remem…"

"Tessa!" He barked her name disentangling from her, his expression furious.

"Still in working order, too." She grinned up at him. "Care to come upstairs and see if you remember how to use 'em? No charge."

"There will be none of that." He growled at her before snatching up his wood carving and knife. "That's not why I came here."

"Was it to be all broody and drink my best wine? Because so far, that's all you've been doing. You're becoming boring. Where's the Warden I knew? The one that could drink like a fish and pleasure a woman…or two…all night long. Right now you're so miserable you're sending my customers home to their husbands and wives." Not seeming the slightest disappointed at the refusal she settled in the chair across from him.

"That's in the past now." He told her in flat tones. "I didn't come here to have sex, Tessa. I came here to think."

She studied him long enough to take a deep drink from his ale mug. "Well, well. I never thought to see you settle, Blackwall."

"Because I wasn't worthy of settling." The words were snarled as he slammed back into his chair once more and tried to focus on the carving. "I'm still not."

"Oh, I know not worthy, Blackwall." Tessa assured him, her piercing green eyes watching him. "You learn it quick in my line, how to judge folk. The men and women who are in pain and want others to feel it more than they do. The ones who are lonely and think they want sex when all they want is to be held and have someone talk to them, acknowledge they're alive and special for a few hours. The ones that just want the pleasure for themselves and would rather a warm hole than a calloused hand. Thirty years I've been in this business, I've only met a handful…maybe a double dozen…like you, lover."

Unwillingly his gaze met hers. "Like me?" He prompted uncertain of her meaning.

"Tall, short, fat, skinny, dwarf, human, elf, qunari, ugly as a mabari's hind end, as beautiful as a noble, you don't care." Tessa cut herself off with a shake of her head, denying her own words. "No, that's not right. You do care. You look at them and you see a woman and that is something beautiful in your eyes. Something wonderful and magnificent. What they look like…that's just an accessory to you…a cloth on the altar you worship at." She lifted a hand and motioned for Tandy to bring her a drink.

Thom winced then and set his carving away. "Is that what you really think?"

She widened her gaze at him, the expression almost mocking. "Think? You forget I was one of those women once. Woman is your religion, Blackwall, the goddess you worship. Not a single one, just whichever one you had your hands on at the time. Until now." Green eyes watched him carefully. "I have a lover. A young noble, handsome enough though his beard is nowhere near the magnificence of your own. Barely off his mother's tit, I think, most days. You'd like him. He's young and earnest and didn't know he had two balls until I showed him. He reminds me of you. Or the you you must have been when you were younger. When the world and all its possibilities were before you."

"I was a damned idiot when I was younger, Tess." He sighed settling back in his chair. "I thought the world owed me and I was going to take them for everything I could get."

Another shrug. "Someday my lover will go. He'll discover a younger, prettier model. Or his high blooded mother will finally find him an unspoiled young thing that will give him children and he'll feel honor bound to stop seeing me." Tessa reached out a hand and covered his. "He reminds me of you because he still has the fresh, unspoiled worship of a woman and her body. Pleasing me is the goal from the moment he arrives until he starts planning for his next journey here and many times that doesn't involve sex. It's that I'm a woman and he finds me divine." Her fingers squeezed on his. "I get the feeling things are much more intense with you and your lady."

"She is my Lady." He said after a long thoughtful pause. "There has never been any other worthy of the title."

"Oh." The word gasped from her as she looked away for a moment, her eyes growing shiny as she touched a hand to her chest. After a moment, she seemed to regroup and looked back at him. "Then why in the blessed shape of Andraste's tits are you here and not with her?"

"If I had that answer, I wouldn't be here, would I?" He countered with a healthy dose of self-disgust taking up his wood carving once more. He stroked the lines of the grain in his hands, his thoughts on the woman herself. "I miss her." He finally said, the words low and strong, as if escaping from a long, pent up prison. "Her smile. Her humor. I kept telling myself I wasn't good enough for her, that I'd leave her, find out who I am and then return to her a better man."

"Well, judging by this last week, the man you are is a lost and miserable waste without her." Tessa pointed out. "Blackwall, if you can't figure out who you are with her and yet you spend all of your time away from her just thinking about her, carving her, brooding over her, then what is the point?" Her voice held exasperation.

"When I'm near her all I can think about is touching her. Hearing her laugh. Making her smile when I'm not making her furious. Just being with her." The words brimmed with frustration "Now I'm away from her, all I can think about is how much I miss her. Her scent, the taste of her. The small noises she makes when I pleasure her. That's why I came here. So I would be distracted from her and sort things out."

Tessa laughed. "There's man-logic for you…you can't stop thinking about sex so you'll stay in a brothel so you can stop thinking about sex."

"There's no one here I want to have sex with." Blackwall pointed out, disgruntled at her teasing.

"Oh, to be there when you try and explain that to your Lady." Tessa sighed, still chuckling.

"She knows I would never betray her that way." Now righteous fury was in his voice. "She understood why I was leaving…"

"Oh, sweetie, understanding and being happy about it are two different things."

Taken aback, he gave her a suspicious look. "That's what she said."

"A line much overused when speaking about a brothel, trust me." Tessa retorted and elicited a half laugh from him. "So you came here, to this old friend, hoping to find out who you are, do I have that right? I'd love to be there when you told her you came to an aging whore to sort out what you're going through."

Blackwall shook his head. "She wouldn't care. She's never been jealous of any of my past lovers."

Tessa gave him a pitying look. "You sad fool." Shaking her head with a sigh she ignored his frown of confusion. "Trust me, she cares."

"I'm not here for sex, Tessa. Maker's balls, how many times do I have to say it?" His voice rose slightly and he drew the curious and surprised looks of those in the brothel who were close enough to hear.

Tessa took compassion on his puzzlement. "Speaking as someone who knows, sex with you is very, very good. No intelligent woman would have complaints there. Getting you to talk, however, getting you to say what you're truly thinking or feeling…now that's where a woman falls short. And if the woman loves you, the way your woman must if you're brooding this badly for her, then your silence becomes her failure." The madam was silent for a long, easy moment, considering the man across from her. "She doesn't think you're coming back. I would bet my entire weekend profit on it."

"I promised her." He said in flat tones.

"Ahhh." Tessa let the sound draw out. "And here we have what you're brooding about, at last. That promise. When it would be so much easier to simply leave in the middle of the night the way you like to."

"No!" The word was a force full of denial and again drew the eye of those in the room. "No, I wouldn't do that to her. Not again. She deserves better."

Sighing, Tessa shifted in her chair, leaning closer to him. "You keep saying that. Who, exactly, are you trying to convince?" She played with the handle of her mug, tracing the carvings with a finger. "I don't think those little bits of yourself that you let escape are enough for her. I think she's smarter than I am. Stronger. Strong enough to let you go believing she'll never see you again."

"I will see her again." He answered, his voice rising with determination. "Once I have myself figured out…"

"Stop lying to yourself, Blackwall." Tessa advised climbing to her feet. "You're not going back. You don't want to. It's easier, safer to stay away and convince yourself you're doing it all for her."

"That's not true." He snapped back.

She sighed again, favoring him with a pitying look. "Oh, it's true, Blackwall. You simply don't want it to be."

With easy strides she moved away from the table, missing how he took one long look at the carving he'd been working on…and then tossed the wood to the fire pit.


	7. Chapter 7

"You really should stop doing that."

She narrowed her eyes and wished she had the strength to bash Mornay over the head with the nearest blunt object. "Waterskin." She rasped before the morning sickness sent her dry heaving once again.

"Is it the Mark?" He asked retrieved the leather bag for her. "Is that what makes you sick?"

She took a slow sip, coating her mouth, deliberately not looking at him until her stomach had settled a bit more. "It's complicated." She finally responded. "We can move on now."

"It can't be good for you." Mornay continued. "My wife was like that with our first daughter. Couldn't settle. Broths were needed to feed her."

"You're married?" She asked more to distract him from that line of thinking than because she actually cared. She wanted nothing more than to see the back of this man, this reminder, this poor sod that she unreasoningly hated simply because the man she loved had stood between him and a hangman's noose resolved to save his life.

"No." The word was soft, drawn out. "After…after the Callier family died and we ran, I went home. I begged her to come with me, that we'd take the children and could start somewhere new in a new country. Somewhere they didn't know my name." Mornay stared ahead seeing a past she wasn't privy to the images of. "She spit on me. Said I wasn't worthy to be a father to her children. That no murderer would share her bed." The pain of those words still resonated on his face and she wanted nothing more than to look away, to deny the words. "She even called the guard on me, so I ran."

"I'm…" Sorry? That he'd followed orders? Murdered an entire family and their retainers? Obeyed the command of the man she loved to assassinate innocents?

She shook her head, losing the words under the heavy weight of nothing to say.

He gave her a wry smile. "It's okay. She was right." He took the waterskin she handed him and then helped her to her feet. "She remarried a couple of years later. Changed the children's last names. They're good kids."

"You must hate him so much." She blurted the words with a surge, shaking her head. "Thom Rainier."

Mornay was quiet for several steps, simply pulling the ancient nag along behind them. "I wanted to be him." He finally spoke, his voice calm and his expression full of a hero worship.

No.

No.

No.

She did not want to hear this. She did not want to know anything about Thom Rainier or the man he used to be or what had happened or why. She wanted nothing to do with him. What she knew already had almost broken her and even now she had trouble ever believing that the man she loved could have been capable of what Thom Rainier had done. Had been capable of turning his back and running away.

As far as she was concerned Thom Rainier was a mistake that should be placed in a dark hole and never spoken of, never let out.

"_'You are who you choose to follow.'_" Mornay quoted, his voice full of affection. "He used to tell us…"

"I need to do some hunting for our food stores." She cut him off, looking around. "We should probably move quietly so as not to scare game off."

He looked at her, his expression full of empathy. "He's told you that…"

"I don't want to talk about him!" She snapped before using her long legs to outdistance him further down the path.

The man she loved was _not_ Thom Rainier! He was Thom Blackwall and the two had nothing in common! _Nothing._

She should have driven Mornay off. She should have chased him away rather than invite him along. What was he to her? _Nothing._ A bad memory that wasn't even hers. A twisted remnant of an evil man who had…who had…who had stepped forward, stepped out of the security of his false name and position determined to prevent the death of the one who had been loyal to him.

This was why Thom had left her. This was why her love had failed.

Maker she hated Thom Rainier with all the passion and fire that she loved Thom Blackwall with and he knew it.

Only they were both the same man.

No matter how she had tried to convince herself Thom Rainier was dead and buried and never need be mentioned again, no matter how hard he had tried to believe her and make it real, he couldn't. He was Thom Rainier. He always would be regardless of what name he called himself or how much he tried to atone for what he had done. To deny this was to deny him. To drive him away.

"Tell…" She swallowed hard, closing her eyes. "Tell me about Thom Rainier."

"You loved him." Mornay said with a compassion that shamed her.

"No, I hated him." She answered with a thick voice. "But I loved who he pretended to be."

Mornay nodded as if he understood perfectly. "He was a great Captain. Treated you fair. Never lorded it over us like some of the others did. Always told us that our first priority, even above the mission, was getting each other home safe. Said he'd worry about what the lords and petty generals wanted done, we were simply to worry about guarding each other's backs and getting back alive."

"He cared for you. Protected you." A twisted and bitter smile covered her lips. That was the man she knew.

"He took every soldier he lost personally." Mornay continued with an encouraging smile as if he were the one that needed to soothe her. "At first he was good enough that the losses were minimal. Maybe one every other year. But he was a great Captain. He got things done and when you are successful you get sent on harder missions because you get results. The harder the missions, the more people he lost, the more angry he became with the fat and dim nobles sending good soldiers to die over slights real and imagined."

She stifled a humorless huffing breath of empathy having seen far too many times how the nobility treated the peasants during her time as Inquisitor.

"We would have died for him. Every last one of us." Mornay continued as if she had spoken. "We would have followed him to the Fade and back if asked."

"You're not missing anything. The Fade is a fucked up place." She answered with a dismissing wave of her hand.

He laughed. "We believed in him." He finally continued. "Have you ever believed in a man so much that he could have said the sun rose from his ass every morning and you'd have believed it? And then found out he took all that faith, all that loyalty and betrayed it? Betrayed you?"

Her eyes drifted closed. "Yes." Same man, even.

"He made us believe we were better men and women. Honorable. That the side we fought for was the right one." Mornay continued quietly. "And then he took gold for an assassination and ran away once it was done."

"He's good at running away." She murmured shaking her head, angry and hurting and confused and unsure.

"Is?"

She blinked. "Was. He's dead. He left me in the middle of the night to go and stop your execution. The note he left behind was…less than helpful."

Mornay nodded and looked forward, down the path once more. "I couldn't believe he'd shown up. At first I thought he was just a Grey Warden come to conscript me."

"No." She bit the word out. "He was never a Grey Warden. That was just another lie."

"Then he told everyone who he wasn't…and who he was. I didn't even recognize him until then." Mornay frowned at the memory. "It wasn't just that he looked different…he acted different. The man I knew in those last days was bitter and angry and full of hate. The man who stood on that scaffold before me wasn't any of that. He was strong and determined that what he saw as justice would prevail. Why did he do it? Why did he come for me when so many others were captured and executed?"

"He spent years pretending he was a better man. A man of honor and integrity." She said quietly. "I think he spent so much time pretending he couldn't stop."

Mornay was quiet for several steps. "Does that make him a good man, then? Simply pretending so much you start to believe the lie yourself? Does that make it the truth then?"

Her head tossed from side to side. "I don't know." She said helpless under a question she couldn't even begin to guess the answer of. "I know he was determined to save you. That he held you blameless in what happened to the Callier family."

"We were following orders." Mornay agreed with a nod.

She twisted her head toward him. "And did it never occur to you once to question that order? Especially once you learned the children were there? To stop and say 'wait a minute, this isn't right'?"

He gave a helpless shrug and couldn't quite meet her eyes. "No. We were given orders. By the time we learned the children were there we were already battle mad and determined to get the job done."

"That's no excuse!" She snarled at him. "If you had questioned, if you had looked him straight in the eye and asked why you were doing this, maybe he would have stopped. Maybe he would have thought twice himself and maybe that family would still be alive!"

"And maybe I would still be married to my wife and father to my children. Maybe I'd be able to look myself in the mirror and see a proud soldier instead of a sniveling murderer." Mornay agreed with words that sounded pat and almost rehearsed…as if he'd made the argument over and over again to himself so many times that they'd become automatic.

"I thought I could forgive him." She whispered to herself. "I thought I could ignore Thom Rainier and simply believe that he was Blackwall and that would make everything okay."

Mornay stopped the nag in the middle of the path and turned to face her. "Excuse me, my Lady, but that's bullshit."

"So I'm learning." She agreed with a sigh.

"You've got nothing to forgive him for, your Worship." Mornay continued, his voice angry and she looked at him surprised. "You weren't there when the Callier family was murdered. They weren't your kin. It wasn't even your kingdom. What happened that day doesn't have a damn thing to do with you."

Her mouth open, she stared at him in shock.

"Yeah, it was murder. Yeah, a lot of mistakes were made and things that should never have been done can now never be undone." Mornay persisted, not backing down from her rising indignation. "You have no right to forgive him for a crime that didn't touch you at all. It wasn't any of your business. Still isn't."

"He is a murderer…" She finally spoke.

"Yes, Ser, he is. And he confessed it before an entire mob. You want to judge him for it, blame him for it, that's fine and good, but you got no call to forgive him for it. It didn't have nothing to do with you."

"He lied to me…"

"A lie is not murder." Mornay cut her off. "He betrayed me, betrayed the men and women who served under us. Only we and the Callier family and retinue can forgive him what he did, because we were the ones affected. Not you."

She simply gaped at him, the truth in his words rolling around her thoughts in a muddled weave.

"I figure he and I are square." Mornay continued, this time he looked away, his thoughts turned inward. "He destroyed my life. With my help. You're right…maybe if I'd questioned things it would have turned out differently. We won't ever know. I was ready to die on that scaffold. He wasn't ready to let me go. He ruined my life, my hopes and dreams. But he gave me another chance, too. A second chance. To be better than he was. To make his sacrifice worth it." As he spoke he nodded, the wild tension and unhappiness that she had seen in him since their meeting began to fade as a new calm and a soothing peace settled over him. "That's what I needed to know, your Worship. I needed to know why he did it…he did it so I would have the same chance he did. So I could make that second chance count for something the way he did. It won't bring the family back. Either the Calliers or my own. But maybe there's other families out there that need help and I can do that. I can prove that I will never make that same mistake again by helping them."

She sat down right in the middle of the path and stared up at Mornay, his words echoing in her ears. He was right. More than he knew. She'd already judged Blackwall for the mistake he'd made and left him free to atone for what he did. That was all she could do. Justice would never be given because nothing could bring the Callier family or any of the others who had suffered for that day back. But Justice could be served by making him seek out others that were in trouble, that would suffer if he didn't intervene.

Which is exactly what he had spent years as Blackwall trying to do and what she had tried to convince him he no longer needed to do because she loved him and wanted him to stay with her no matter what.

"Maker love me for the fool that I am." She whispered under her breath.

He had taken Blackwall's name to hide behind and to honor a dead man who had seen worth in a broken murderer. He'd stepped into every fray, every conflict he could trying to prove over and over again that he was a good man and thought nothing of shedding his own blood to make sure the point was driven home. Once that lie was exposed his purpose had been taken away. There was no more pretending to be a good man which meant the only man left was the one who had supervised the massacre of a family.

Thom Rainier was dead, but he would never die. Not so long as Thom Blackwall lived. The debt had never been paid…could never be paid…but he had to keep trying. To do otherwise was to believe that he earned redemption, to believe that his good deeds had finally made up for his evil and so long as the Callier family remained dead no matter of good deeds could make up for that evil. He had understood this.

In denying Thom Rainier's existence, she had denied Thom Blackwall's chance to redeem, his very need for it. Maker, no wonder he had left her.

"Oh, Thom." She groaned the name burying her face in her hands. "I am so sorry. I didn't understand."

Mornay crouched next to her. "He would have understood." The man said peacefully, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. "That's why he stood for me. He was trying to make things right the only way he could."

Her gaze rose to meet the former soldier's. "I owe you an apology, too, Cyril Mornay." She said quietly taking the hand on her shoulder. "I should have found out what became of you after they set you free. I should have made sure you were settled and cared for. I didn't. I'm sorry."

He gave her a sweet smile. "It's okay. Sometimes we have to walk our own path to figure out where we're going."

She stood, her expression determined and resolved. "The Inquisition can use a man of your caliber, Cyril Mornay. I will send you with a letter of introduction to my Commander, Cullen. He'll know best how to place you. You'll have a purpose and a paycheck. The choice of keeping your name or choosing another is also granted to you. You wouldn't be the first to join the Inquisition under a new name and a new purpose and Maker willing you will not be the last." She dug into the pouch on the side of the nag, searching for paper and ink. "I'll send you with enough funds to get you to Skyhold as well."

A bit dazed he watched her scribble a quick note to Cullen with introductions and instructions.

"Now, when you meet Cullen…and you will meet him once you tell them you saw me on the road…he's going to ask you a lot of questions like where you met me and if I looked healthy. Go ahead and answer him the best you can. Think of it as a test of your loyalty." She folded the paper up and handed it to him before reaching for the money pouch on her waist. "This will get you to Skyhold proper. Go ahead and consider it an advance. Spend some on decent clothes. You'll have armor and a weapon provided to you once there."

"Your Worship…" He began in an awed voice.

"Also, tell Cullen he can't yell at me when I showed him exactly where I was going." She said before divvying up the food she had left, giving him the greater portion since she was probably just going to throw it up anyway. Besides, she was only a week or so from Honnleath and could restock in the farms between here and there.

"Yell at you?" Mornay repeated stilled stunned.

"It's a Cullen thing. I don't do what he thinks I should in order to stay safe and he gets cranky with me." She waved a hand. "Now, you know how to get to Skyhold?"

"Yes, your Worship…"

She literally began pushing him back down the path. "Go. The sooner there, the sooner you'll settle and Cullen really can use a good soldier."

He didn't bother protesting further, just continued to walk back along the path they had come, occasionally turning and looking back at her, his expression saying he still didn't understand what had just happened.

She waited until he was gone from sight before continuing on her own path, her thoughts full. She'd needed Mornay gone. She needed to be alone so she could think and understand and accept.

Blackwall had messed up. So had she. She couldn't fix what was wrong because what he had done was unfixable. Trying to ignore it, pretend another person had committed those crimes hadn't worked. She needed to decide if what he had done was something she could live with, assuming he ever returned to her.

In honesty, she could say she believed that people deserved second chances. But she also believed that some crimes could never be forgiven and those involving children were at the very top of her list.

She tugged the nag along behind her, barely seeing the road through the thoughts in her eyes.

Mornay had been right, too. The Callier family massacre had happened in a different kingdom and was so removed from her that she'd never even heard of it until Blackwall…Thom Rainier had crossed her path. It touched her life because it shaped his. In fact, had it never happened would she and Thom Rainier ever have met? Would there now be a child growing in her?

Did the Maker laugh when He set these things in motion?

Many would argue that Thom Rainier deserved the exact same chance he'd given his victims…none at all. Those who adhered to the clarion call of Justice would be the ones with the loudest voices proclaiming such and they would be right. Those who listened to the more subtle and subversive lullaby of Mercy would say nothing good came of death and it would simply be one more waste when allowing life allowed for the chance to reform and redeem…or in the worst case scenario…serve as an example.

Were both right? Were both wrong?

How could she love a murderer of children?

How could she not love a protector of the people?

What was the correct answer when there was no correct answer?

What would she tell the child some day of his or her father? Who he had been? What he had done.

What if he never came back? Out of all her fears, this was the one closest to her heart, that she had driven him away once and for all.

What if all these questions drove her insane and the whole situation became moot?

A scoffing laugh from her startled the horse and set her off again. Really, how messed up was her life when she started to think that insanity was a good solution?


	8. Chapter 8

He was going back.

The decision made, he drained the mug in front of him and motioned for Tandy to refill.

No, she was safer if he stayed away.

He drained the next mug in several deep throat swallows, ale splashing over the edges and running down his beard. "Another." He slammed the mug down in front of Tandy.

He had to see her. Touch her. Be with her. The need was an almost physical pain. He was going back.

"Want to try some food to soak up that ale, Blackwall?" Tandy asked cautiously as she tapped him off again.

"That would ruin my plan to get shitfaced." He answered her in flat tones.

"Do you have a plan to break the place up in a drunken brawl? Because we might have to adjust your plan if that's the case." Tandy kept a grip on the mug.

He jerked it free, sloshing the contents across the bar. "It's not a plan, but it is an idea." This time he only drank a quarter before setting the mug back down.

Go back? Let her see him as the disgusting animal he was? Never.

Tandy gave a great sigh, shaking her head. "Blackwall, I like you. You're one of the best men I've ever met. Right now, however, you're a fucking disgrace."

He saluted her with his mug and then drained the rest of the contents in two swallows. "More."

He was going back. He'd promised.

But it wouldn't be the first time he'd broken faith with someone. That he'd failed them.

"Seriously, if you were this way around whoever she is, I can see why she tossed you out." Tandy continued and filled his drink again.

"Nope." Blackwall shook his head finally starting to feel a slight buzz. "I was a good man when I was around her. Until I wasn't."

"She the reason you weren't a hero anymore?" Tandy asked curiously, ignoring a call down at the far end of the bar for a refill.

"No." He shook his head. "I fucked that one up. Before I met her."

Tandy frowned and then shook her head, sharpened horns slicing through the air in a way that would have been dangerous to anyone standing next to her. "One of us isn't making any sense. And by 'one of us' I mean you."

"When I'm around her, I'm a fucking hero." He said staring down into the froth floating on the top of his ale. "When I'm not around her…I'm a fucking waste." Another salute and he was drinking again.

Tandy considered him for a long moment, then shot a middle finger to the patron at the end of the bar who was now banging her metal stein against the wood. "Sooo, if you're a good hero type when you're around her…why'd you leave? 'Cause I don't think anyone likes you the way you are right now. I know I don't."

A snorting laugh blew foam off his beard. "Got that fucking right." He said and drank again.

"Just a minute." Tandy tossed a towel over her shoulder and marched down to the now bellowing customer. With one hand she grabbed the human woman by the leather jerkin and dragged her over to a water barrel just inside the kitchen door. As casual as if dunking a dirty mug, she began to bob the woman's head up and down in the water.

He was going back. Once he'd drunk enough courage, he was going to go back, beg her forgiveness and never leave again.

Until she kicked him out because she finally saw him for what he really was.

Thing was, he _was_ a better man when he was around her. There was only one thing more he had wanted in his fucked up life than to see her look at him as a good man…and that was to go back in time and thump the idiot he had been for taking gold to murder a noble.

He had been a good man.

Thom studied the top of his ale, considering the random detritus floating about the surface. The things he'd done under Blackwall's name…in Blackwall's name…were still the things _he'd _done. He may have been pretending to be Blackwall, but the actions had always been his own, things he'd hoped the real Blackwall would approve of. He had spent the last several years of his life trying to make the world a better place and he had.

The Calliers were dead. If he could give his life to undo that mistake, he would, even if it meant never having seen his Lady, never having met her or loved her. Since he couldn't correct that mistake, he did the only thing he could…try to prevent other senseless deaths.

That was the man she'd fallen in love with. The one who simply did the best he could to help others. Knowing about Thom Rainier had shaken her…badly…but she had still believed in him. Believed that there was good in him. Time he started believing in himself again.

"I think that particular patron has decided she's had enough to drink." Tandy said rejoining him at the bar.

He glanced over that the soaking wet human woman who was simply sitting on the floor next to the barrel trying to breathe and gave a soft huffing laugh.

"Tandy, I'll need my pack. I'm going home." He set the rest of the ale down and felt the peace of the decision come over him.

The tall qunari gave him a careful study and then smiled. "'Bout damn time. You were making me want to cry."

Thom laughed, this time the sound freer. "Was my face that miserable?"

"Actually it was the thought of never seeing you naked." She gave a wistful sigh. "The stories I've heard…" She let the words trail off, shaking her head.

"All of them lies." He said shoving back from the bar. He was going home. Back to her. "Unless they were talking about the beard. Then all of it is true." Deciding that he'd better soak his own head if he wanted to make the trip sober, he turned to go to the water barrel.

The fist that slammed into his jaw caught him completely off guard.

"You son of a bitch." One of the three Cullen's currently in his blurry view snarled at him. The other two just glared at him.

"Actually, my mother was a very nice woman." Thom shook his head and then wiped at the blood on his beard. This time there was only one Cullen when he looked. He still seemed extremely pissed, though.

"A whorehouse? You left the Inquisitor for a _whorehouse_?" Cullen demanded with a fierce snarl.

"Technically it's a Dance Hall." He spit blood on the floor and then tongued a loose tooth. "And Tessa is one of the finest women I know."

"She should have left you in Val Royeaux to hang." Cullen spat, his fists still clenched.

"Take it outside, boys." Tessa ordered joining them. Then she took a long look at Cullen and her interest turned to other matters. "Unless, of course, you find someone much more pleasurable to fill your time with." Taking his hand she leaned against him, pressing her breasts suggestively forward. "Another way to work out all of that nasty aggression."

Reining in his temper, Cullen spared her a glance and carefully disentangled himself. "Right now the only woman I'm interested in finding is the Inquisitor. I had hoped to find her with Blackwall but I didn't expect to find him in this sort of…establishment."

Thom had gone completely still. His steel eyes narrowed at Cullen as all thought of returning the punch fled. "What do you mean, 'find the Inquisitor'? She's at Skyhold."

Cullen glared at him. "No. She isn't. She stabbed a note through the war table saying she'd be back in a few weeks. She left without guard and without companions. We can't find her."

Thom didn't really remember moving. There seemed to be a haze that cascaded down over his eyes and when he blinked he was slamming the Commander of the Inquisition's military against the wall with both fists curled around his travelling tunic. "What do you mean, you can't find her?" He demanded. "You have the best damn spy network in all of Thedas. _Where is she?_" This was growled in a low voice that resembled a roll of thunder during a lightning storm.

Some of Cullen's anger seemed to fade to exasperation. "We don't know. I had hoped she'd come after you, but obviously that isn't the case. Or she took one look at where you were staying…ughn!" The last was cut off as Thom lifted him up until his toes were barely touching the ground and slammed him back against the wall again.

"She wouldn't have come after me. She knew I needed more time and she would have kept her promise to give it to me. Where is she?" The deep tones of Thom's voice boomed with force though the sound carried no further than the two men.

"We don't know." Cullen bit back, his own temper rising. "Chasing you down was a desperate…and apparently futile…hope."

The truth of that sunk in and Thom allowed him sink back to the ground, releasing him, his thoughts already racing. "How did she leave?" She wouldn't have just left. She'd have had a plan and a purpose…avoiding him would have been part of it…but she wasn't a fool. She knew the world was a dangerous place. She'd have accounted for that and with the full knowledge that the Inquisition would never simply let the Herald of Andraste disappear.

"We're pretty sure she walked out." Cullen rubbed his fingers over his forehead. "Dressed as a pilgrim." A muscle in his jaw began to twitch as the words ground out between his teeth. "In hindsight, her planning to leave anonymously is obvious. At the time, I attributed her behavior to…" The words cut off abruptly.

Thom glanced at him. "To what? My being a bastard?"

Cullen blinked. "Yes, let's go with that." He agreed. "Do you know where she might have gone?"

"Catch!" Tandy yelled and sent a full pack sailing through the air toward Cullen like a missile.

A single hand was all he needed to keep the Commander from a broken nose and Thom did so with an almost negligent grace. "You said she stabbed a note through the war table…was it on the map itself?"

Exasperated, Cullen nodded. "Yes. Right over Honnleath, my childhood home, which I took as a personal attack on…" His voice trailed off as both a comprehending and a disbelieving expression warred for dominion on his face. "Are you telling me that's where she's gone?"

"Most like." Thom nodded, a smile twitching the corners of his mustache. "She does have a sense of humor." He was already settling the pack over his shoulder. "Send word to Leliana to have her scouts search in that direction. Also, I want horses and resupply points set up for me from here to Honnleath."

Cullen caught his arm as he tried to walk past. "Are you certain she wants to see you?" The question was serious.

Thom considered it and met the younger man's gaze. "No. But I'm not giving her a choice. She wants me gone, she'll have to tell me to my face."

"You'll deserve it if she does."

"I know." He agreed. "It will be one more in a long line of fuckups I've committed."

The corner of Cullen's mouth rose in a half-admiring and reluctant smile. "I'll send word to Leliana regarding the resupply points."

Thom gave a brief nod of acquiescence and headed for the door.

"Good luck."

* * *

><p>The nag died two days after she sent Mornay on.<p>

She had been sitting on it, trying to encourage the creature to move forward when it had expelled a loud groaning noise and keeled over. Stunned, she'd been unable to kick her foot free of the stirrups in time and ended up with her left leg pinned beneath the dead weight and her body slammed hard enough to the packed dirt road that she couldn't breathe. Bruised and unsure if she'd broken anything, she managed to sit up after her lungs remembered how to work properly.

Glancing up at the late afternoon sky, she grimaced. Night was coming and there was a particular name given to foolish folk who managed to get injured and stuck in the forest after the sun went down. That name was Dinner.

Getting the horse off her enough that she could get free took effort and patience and her knee was throbbing by the time she did. The sun was also low in the sky, darkening the forest about her. Shoving away from the corpse that had already began to draw flies, she let her body sink back to the road once more, just breathing, exulting that she'd succeeded. She wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep until her strength returned.

That's when the first howl shook her.

Maker bless her and the child she carried…she was lying next to a big meal for a pack of wolves or a lazy bear and she had no desire to remain here while they sniffed it out.

She tested her leg with her hands first, touching and prodding feeling nothing but the pain of bruising. She could see nothing but whole skin and no blood. No immediate danger from injuries meant she had to leave. Now. Rising took all her strength and putting pressure on the leg sent spots of dizziness flashing through her eyes.

The howling drew nearer.

With a curse she clawed the pack with her healing supplies in it open and found the jars had shattered when the horse had gone down. Tossing it aside as worthless, she considered her options.

Another howl, closer this time.

As if in response to the wolves she could not see, her lips curled, her eyes narrowed to a determined snarl as she jerked the rest of her packs free from the corpse and staggered to the nearest tree. She needed a stick. A staff. Something to help her walk.

She couldn't move on. Not like this. Not and outrun a wolf pack.

Desperation sent her searching through the near trees until she found one she was reasonably sure she could climb. Sucking in a deep breath, trying to place as much stability onto her abused leg as she could, she began to ascend. Her packs were slung over her chest and helped to balance her as she steadily pulled herself up from branch to branch seeking the higher ones where the wolves wouldn't dare.

Snarling yips of victory and glee startled her, so close beneath her the wolves had come and she hadn't noticed.

Nor had they noticed her. Too focused on their easy prize. With savage snarls and hungry growls, the alphas of the pack began to worry at the soft stomach meat of the horse, jerking and pulling to free the meal they wanted.

She ignored it all and began to rise again. Steadily, making certain her footing was firm, she rose until she reached the wide thick branch she wanted. Exhausted, emotionally drained, she sat there for a moment simply breathing, trying to ignore the yips and snarls coming from below her. The wolves could worry at their meal for hours and she would be pinned in this tree, her knee throbbing with pain and no healing meds to fix it, listening to the disgusting gulping and tearing, but at least she would be alive and she planned on staying that way.

The rope was on the top of her pack as was proper and she used several knots to loop a lasso first about her chest, under her arms and then toss the loose end up and over another firm branch. Once she had the line taunt, she wrapped the other end about her waist and then slung the extra under the branch she sat on and over her lap several times, effectively propping herself up and keeping her tied in place at the same time. Safe and secure, for the moment, at least, her thoughts began to wander.

Why children? She could forgive anything…almost anything…but that.

Her head fell back against the tree, her eyes closing as the fingers of her left hand moved protectively over the curve of her stomach.

Yeah, maybe his soldiers had done the killing, but the order to kill…and the lack of order to stop…had been his decision alone. She had stepped in to command the Inquisition when the act had been asked of her and she had given orders to send men and women to die and even worse…to kill. She knew the price of command. The demands.

Maker bless, there had been _children_.

Over and over in her head, she struggled to understand the decision not to act when he'd learned the children were there and over and over she came up blank. It was not a call she would have made…to be silent and fear the censure of peers over the life of a child. She wasn't sure she could understand it. She had seen him race forward to guard a fallen comrade against a _dragon_ of all things and he had been afraid his soldiers would learn about a lie he told? How could this be the same person?

Or…maybe she was being too simplistic. Too black and white.

A man could change…so could a woman and she knew that because she had. The person she had been, the goals, the dreams, the very focus of her life had changed the day she had opened a door and faced an ancient monster bent on destroying her world. Everything she had planned for her future, everything she was focused on, changed as a result of that meeting. A change she hadn't initiated, but she had reacted to.

She didn't know what had caused Thom's change. Maybe he'd fallen so far that the only choice became to crawl back out of the filth or let it drown him. Maybe the real Blackwall had said something, done something that had reminded Thom of the man he'd been, the one who had respect and the loyalty of his soldiers…and the man he could try to be again.

The sheer fortitude, the resolve, to make such a change…she shook her head. She had never fallen that far, but she didn't think that if she did that she would ever have the will to choose life, to choose redemption and try to correct the mistakes made. Death was such an easier answer. Life…life was fucking scary.

Maybe…maybe the lie that he was Warden Blackwall had been needed. Not just to hide behind, but for Thom to change. To stop and think, 'this is what a good man, a Grey Warden, would do' over and over again until it became natural and second nature and no more thought was needed because it was a habit now.

The man she'd fallen in love with hadn't been a lie. Not at the core, where it mattered. That was who Thom had chosen to be. Who he wanted to be and had the fortitude to make the changes in himself to be who he wanted. His biggest fear wasn't death or answering for that crime or anything else so mundane. His biggest fear was himself. That he was still pretending. Still lying about who he was and that he hadn't really changed at all. That if he were to be placed in that same situation with those same soldiers under his command he would give the exact same order to attack and murder the Callier retinue.

He wouldn't. She knew that. But Thom was the one who wasn't sure. Who knew that being a good man wasn't a decision that needed to be made only once and then it would stick forever, but rather it was a choice made every day, with every challenge. Some days the choice was easy. She knew that, she'd seen it. Other days…other days he faltered. She'd seen that, too.

So, at the core of it, it wasn't a question of who he was, Thom Rainier or Warden Blackwall. No, the question was so much simpler and so much more infinitely complex…had he changed? If he were to be placed in that same situation today, would he make the same mistake?

A soft, heartbroken smile curved her lips. No. He would not make that mistake again. Were he to be there today, he would have died to protect the Callier family, even if it meant killing his own soldiers. On the good days, it wouldn't even be a question. On the bad days, the days of self-doubt and despair and self-hate…those were the days he would be vulnerable and need to be reminded who he chose to be, the man he now was.

That's what she should have done. Not protect Thom from the barbs and the censor of those who knew what he'd done, but rather stand at his side, proud and strong and let him know she believed in him when no one else…including himself…did. On those bad days, she would be the one to not let him falter.

Was it a perfect answer? No. Neither she nor Thom were perfect people. But they were better together than they were apart.

And it was her answer. What she'd been searching for since she'd left Skyhold. If Thom returned to her, she would have the resolve to make this change in herself. If he didn't…

Her eyes closed. If he didn't, she would still go on. For herself and for the child she carried.

* * *

><p>Thom made very good time with the resupply points scattered along his route. Pausing only long enough to rest weary joints and catch a few hours of sleep, he was still crossing a large chunk of Fereldan in a short amount of time. Word had come at one of his stops that her trail had been found and he'd guessed correctly that she was on her way to Honnleath and had purchased a horse of questionable age to help her get there.<p>

He would find her soon. The nag would slow her down and was the clearest sign that she wasn't in a hurry. No hurry meant she would stick to the main roads simply for the convenience, which was good. The bad was that Honnleath was in a part of Fereldan hit hard by the last blight. Darkspawn and worse now roamed the land. Bandits. Blight creatures.

He shouldn't worry. She was tough and good in a fight. Strong and smart. And he was going to yell at her the minute he found her. Possibly even tan her ass. She knew better than to travel alone through these lands…especially now that she was the Inquisitor and half of Thedas was still trying to decide whether to ally with her or assassinate her. Or both.

"Whoa." He began to slow his mount seeing the Inquisition flag waving in the wind as he crested a hill.

Another relay point. He would switch both his horse and then continue on without resting this time. He was getting close to her and he didn't want to stop for any reason.

"Ser!" One of the Scouts hailed him as he drew alongside him. "We've food and supplies."

"Any word?" Thom pulled his leg over the horse dismounting.

"Yes, ser." The Scout took the reins and tossed them to his partner. "The Inquisitor sent an ex-soldier to Skyhold bearing a message that he'd seen her and she was well. He was to give Commander Cullen this information at Skyhold but we intercepted him first and have sent him along the route to the Commander."

"When did he last see her?" Excitement thumped Thom's heart.

"Two days, ser. She was traveling the main road." The Scout handed over an oil cloth of wrapped food. "Eat, ser. We'll switch the mounts and have you on your way."

Two days. He could make that up in no time. He could finally be with her again.

Wolfing down his food, he mused over what he would do when he saw her.

Kiss or yell?


	9. Chapter 9

Time passed slowly as she fitfully dozed, never quite able to trust the snarls and howls at her feet as the wolves feasted and left and then other night creatures came to pick the bones of what remained of her horse.

By morning her leg was swollen making her descent down the tree agonizing, but she knew she could not remain here and expect to survive. Meals didn't last long in the wood. There was always the hunt for the next one. Finding a sturdy fallen limb, she began the slow, tedious walk to Honnleath. Walking on her injured leg helped the sore and bruised muscles but a dull, thudding pain in her knee began to grow the longer the day went on. She was exhausted, hurt and seriously reconsidering the logic behind ever leaving Skyhold.

What irony. To have faced demons from the fade, primeval darkspawn and dragons only to be brought down by an ancient horse she should have thought twice about purchasing in the first place.

Or she could just get eaten by a bear.

She froze in place staring at the lumbering creature as it sniffed curiously on the path before her. Easily larger than her, it didn't seem hungry or hostile, but if anything her time in the Hinterlands had taught her that the bloody creatures were not simple to kill. Outrunning them was not an option, either. Not that she could on her injured knee. Climbing was useless, too, bears could climb and a whole lot faster than she was capable of.

"Well, shit." The words were spoken aloud unintentionally and drew the attention of the creature.

She hunched over, slumping trying to pull all aggressive body language into a more submissive…and hopefully dismissive…posture. Slowly she began to back away from the bear who was still watching her inquisitively, nostrils flexing. Giving the creature a wide, wide circle, she hobbled off the main road, shadowing the trail until she felt confident enough to again get back on it, the bear long gone, hopefully behind her.

The first drops of rain began to fall then. Stunned, disbelieving, she held out a hand in serious denial that her crappy day had actually managed to make a turn for the worse by adding a summer shower.

Or deluge.

She left the road searching through the darkening forest for a shelter for the night, torn between wanting to sit down and give up and screaming her rage to whatever Gods were punishing her. She found a fallen tree draped with vines and other growth that provided a partial shelter and hunkered down, pulling her hooded cloak about her tighter for whatever protection it could provide from the cold, freezing rain.

It was then she learned she'd lost her ironbark cloak pin.

In that moment she gave up. Wolves, bears, rain…she could recover from those, she was strong, but the cloak pin had been her first gift from Thom. He'd carved a block of ironbark for months suffering nicks and cuts but persisting with the same dogged determination that he always seemed to approach a goal with, never letting whatever impediments beat him, just resolutely wearing the obstacle down until he had what he wanted. A strong cloak needle with one end looped about a curved and mostly enclosed horseshoe pattern for easy movement. The entire surface was carved with intricate and beautiful entwined vines and leaves that he had taken hours to style and smooth and oil. He'd told her that if she loved it, to always keep the cloak pin close to her heart. It wasn't until an idle moment during a rather long and boring meeting with her advisers that she'd found his name carved among the vines.

And she'd _lost_ it. Like she'd lost him. Because she was an idiot and she was tired of pretending she was strong when she was just a mess inside and she would have gotten people killed if she'd tried to make a decision for the Inquisition in her current frame of mind and she found she didn't even really care about them anymore because she was a miserable selfish person who wanted Thom with her and if he wasn't, then what was the whole point and she didn't like it when she was miserable like this and making other people miserable and she'd lied to her advisors and run away like an idiot and she was just DONE. No more. She was just going to sit here until she was happy again. Until she was normal and herself again.

Her stomach growled with a large protesting noise.

"Might want to feed that beast before it gets free." A low gravelly voice drifted in from the rain soaked dark about her.

Great. Just great. Now she really was insane, because that was what this situation really needed, a dose of crazy trying to convince her she could hear his voice.

A shadow moved to her left and she was on her feet in an instant. Hands that were moving for a weapon to defend herself with instead clutched at the screaming pain from her left knee as she began to topple over.

"Easy." Strong arms caught her, setting her gently on the soaked leaves. "You're injured?"

She blinked through streaming rain to stare incomprehensively at the bearded man so close to her. Confused, she searched for an answer…and found it. "Of course. This is the Fade." She looked about her at the dark forest. "I must of accidentally brought myself here with the mark when the horse died and I fell and because I'm miserable, the Fade is reacting to me and making everything around me miserable." A disgusted noise harrumphed from her chest. "Fine. If this is the Fade, I should be able to control it with my thoughts which means this rain will go away. Right now."

Blackwall made a show of looking about the two of them, water streaming from his beard. "Anytime now, then." He said with heavy humor and then paused again. "Maybe you're not trying hard enough."

She stared at him. "Maker, you're _real?_"

"Real tired, real wet, real cold and real irritated." He agreed, his steely eyes staring at her for a long hard minute. "I'll take care of the first three." He whistled low and a large horse joined them from the forest, dragging a pack mule along behind. "The last one's on you."

"You're here?" She blinked, still trying to understand. "You can't be here. You need to leave." Maker, had she accidentally followed his own path? Did he think she was stalking him now? Trying to trap him?

Flinty blue eyes glinted at her through the darkness. "Was that injury to your head, by chance?"

"I was trying to give you time to get your act together!" She snapped at him and then hissed as her knee was jarred sending a wrenching pain through her.

"Sit there until I have a shelter about us." He ordered pulling oilcloth from the mule's pack.

"But…"

"_Quietly_ sit there."

Normally she wouldn't have obeyed an order given in such a tone, but the pain in her knee seemed to have mixed with the nausea from the morning sickness it seemed she was never going to be rid of and all of her will power was needed not to throw up on him. In short order he had a tented shelter about them, a canvas beneath them to keep them out of the wet and had managed to coax a fire from not quite soaked foliage.

"Is it the leg?" He asked stripping out of his over clothes and laying them to the side to dry as best they could. Crouching near her, drips of rain from his soaked hair and beard spotting her pants, he placed both hands near where her own were and began to gently probe.

"It's not broken, but I won't say having that damn nag fall on me didn't do some damage to the joint." She answered through gritted teeth, her features grey at the waves of pain his touch was causing.

"Any healing poultices?" He asked already reaching for one of his own packs.

"Filthy Fade-mad horse managed to land on them as well." She shook her head.

"I've some." Setting several bottles aside her knee, he finally looked up at her again. "This will go better without your pants."

"They're soaked anyway." She shrugged and started on her ties.

He took that as permission to begin unlacing her left boot, steadily working the leather loose, pulling her foot free as she tried to shimmy out of her pants and ended up on her side dry heaving. Without a word he pulled her hair back from her face, keeping the strands free of what little bile she managed to produce. Weak, shaking, she would had sunk to the ground to just lay there had he not propped her up against his gambeson armored chest and pressed an open flask of ale to her lips.

"Sip. It will either ease your stomach or give you something to throw up."

The Maker finally took pity on her and the honey flavored drink soothed her stomach. Exhausted, she sank against him, her eyes closing. "Why are you here, Thom?" She finally asked.

His answer was to gently position her against a tree before looping his fingers in the loose waist of her pants. "I'll be as gentle as I can, but this will hurt." He advised her and then swiftly lifted and pulled until her left leg was completely nude and the right wore only a boot and her bunched up pants.

The left knee was twice the size it should have been and discolored with dark bruises.

Blackwall let out a low whistle. "Well, you've not been kind to yourself, that's certain." He took one of the bottles near her knee and began scraping the thick aromatic unguent out of the bowl. "I'll be as gentle as I can." He repeated before spreading the mixture onto her swollen skin.

She hissed through her teeth several times, keeping them clenched so she wouldn't bite her tongue and then seemed to relax all at once as the poultice began to take effect. "Oh, that's much better." She moaned as the pain began to fade and a warmth took its place.

His thumbs continued to massage the gradually healing injury, adding more poultice as needed until the dark bruises had faded to normal, healthy skin. Instead of stopping, his calloused fingers spread down, rubbing her calf until the skin was warm and tingling before rising once more to apply a final coating to the injured knee.

They didn't speak. He was focused on his work and she simply watched him through half-lidded eyes as though fearing words would somehow make him disappear. When those clever fingers began to work on her thigh, stroking and rising ever higher, he finally looked up, his face expressionless but his eyes piercing her with a careful study, ready to stop at a moment's notice should she indicate she didn't want his touch. Instead she let her right hand rise and began working the buckles on her jacket. Impossibly, he seemed to grow more intent, a ruddy flush on his cheeks and about his eyes making his gaze seem even more fierce.

A space of time later, she lay snuggled against his naked chest, her body relaxed and more asleep than awake when she finally heard him speak.

"Well, that took care of the cold." He rumbled.

Smiling she let sleep take her under.

* * *

><p>She woke up naked and without a blanket. This had the odd effect of finally driving home that he was here, with her. That it hadn't all been a pain induced dream.<p>

Rising on one arm, she looked around and found him fully dressed and crouched before the hot coals of the fire cooking griddle cakes.

"And again I wake up without a blanket or a stitch on." She teased slowly sitting up.

He slanted a steel eyed gaze her way. "You're welcome." Was the supremely satisfied answer and she laughed.

Reality wouldn't be held at bay forever, though, and she wrapped a blanket about her shoulders, not moving from their bed. "Why are you here, Thom?"

"Shouldn't that be the question I ask you?" He flipped one of the cakes and seemed satisfied at the brown color. "I left you at Skyhold."

Her mouth opened slightly in surprise as her temper sparked. "And you expected that I would just stay there? Should I have had them build me a Widow's Walk that I could pace back and forth on weeping and wailing that you were gone?"

He faced her, his expression grim beneath the thick beard. "If it would have kept your ass safe and sound and where I left you, yes."

"Oh, you sad, deluded man." She shook her head, the warning signs of her righteous anger flushing her face.

"D'you know what it did to me?!" He shocked her by barking the words, slamming the pan against the fire break of rocks encircling the coals. "I tracked your horse to where that pack of wolves tore it t'pieces and I couldn't tell if you were part of the mess or not!"

Swallowing, stunned that the usually taciturn, controlled man before her seemed in such a high temper, she simply stared at him.

Knuckles white, he placed the fry pan in the coals once more. "I finally convinced m'self that you'd escaped somehow when I spotted this."

Instinct had her hand snaking out and catching the silver/blue object he tossed at her. "My cloak pin!" She said with a breath of joy. "You found it!" She clutched the gift tightly, smiling beautifully at him.

The pan scraped across the rock once more and he said nothing, grimly glaring down at the griddle cakes that by all reason should have curled in shame away from the expression.

Sighing, she gave away her anger and let compassion flood over her. "Thom, I'm sorry. I had no idea anyone was following me. I didn't—"

"If you'd stayed in Skyhold, it wouldn't have been an issue!" He snarled at her.

Okay, there was only so much she was willing to take. "Skyhold was a bad memory for me, Thom. I wasn't going to stay and wallow in it." Well, not after the first few days or so.

For a long moment he was quiet and she began to think the worst had passed before he spoke again.

"Did you know before I left?"

Struggling with her own anger at his leaving her, she shook her head, confused. "That you were leaving? Yes, Thom, I knew. I knew it was only a matter of time before I lost you and I wasn't—"

She'd forgotten how fast he could move. Most of the time his movements were slow and even and placed with a careful and misleading deliberation that others often underestimated. But she had seen him move in incredible bursts of speed when a teammate was under attack and flailing, his shield raised to protect and defend until they'd regained their ground.

There only seemed to be a single blink of her eye and he was no longer crouched near the fire but had her pinned against the tree that provided much of their shelter, her hands near her head, his beard tickling her as he stared into her eyes.

"Did you think I wouldn't be able to tell?" The words were low and edged with an emotion she didn't understand and couldn't predict. "D'you know how many hours I've spent studying you? Committing every little beauty mark, every jagged scar and perfect imperfection to my memory? Scared that someday you would be gone and all I'd have left is what I could remember? Memories fade and I will not let you fade from mine."

Unsure, she tried to pull back from him, but the tree was unforgiving. "Thom, I…"

"Did you think I wouldn't know the curve of your breast?" He let her hand go before hooking a finger in her blanket and pulling it down low enough that she bounced free and that same finger began to trace from near her armpit down the soft skin to the puckering nipple. "How well you fit in my hands?" He cupped her now and she sucked in a soundless breath arching into that touch. "How much heavier they are. Fuller." He lowered his face, brushing his nose against the upper slope of her breast with a soft nuzzle as his thumb scraped across the tip of her nipple sending jagged arcs of pleasure searing through her. He seemed unsatisfied with her response, demanding more as his mouth nipped a trail to her other breast, his beard coarse against the softness of her sensitized skin coming closer and finally brushing across her taunt nipple.

She made a squeaking noise as need sparked a wildfire in her and she began to burn.

"And here…" He went to his knees before her then, dragging the blanket down with him until he could press his forehead against the naked curve of her belly still only slightly sloped from the pregnancy. "How many times have you cradled me against you? Taken me so snuggly inside you? Fitting us together in a way I could not imagine being more perfect. Not until last night." His mouth pressed against her then, the matte of his beard scraping across the quivering muscles of her stomach, forcing her to strangle the cry of more that wanted to bellow from her lungs. He wasn't done, either. The rough caress of his tongue, the nip of his teeth left her gasping as he moved lower and lower still until he paused right where she needed him most. "Will I hurt the child?" He asked.

"Who gives a damn?" The words were dragged from her as her hands dove into his thick hair. "Thom, the child is fine. I won't be if you don't...ohhhh." She smacked her head back against the bark of the tree as his mouth plucked and played her with the slow deliberation of a maestro obsessed with perfection in his work. Pleasure streaked through her bouncing with a dreamy chaos until she barely noted his moving her to her back on their bed.

"I'll not leave you again." He growled low, near her ear as he slid thick and hard and deep into her. "I promise you that."

She made no answer, more focused on meeting him stroke for stroke, driving him to the brink he'd tossed her over. Smiling when the growl of his satisfaction told her she'd won.

* * *

><p>"Naked. Again."<p>

He was back at the coals, fresh griddle cakes on the pan but he paused long enough to give her a slow, satisfied smile. "You're welcome. Again."

She wanted to laugh, to smile, but sighed instead pushing a hand through hair thoroughly tangled with leaves and sticks and bits of bark. "I didn't know. Not for certain." She answered the question he'd asked so long before.

A thoughtful nod had him bringing his attention back to the food. "Would you have sent word?"

"No." She gave him honesty as she very deliberately began to put her messy body to rights and dress.

Another nod, slower this time. "Better the child not know his father was a coward and a murderer."

Incensed, she crossed their small camp in two steps and clutched his beard between two fingers, pulling his face around to look at her. "Oh, this child will know his or her father. I will take great pains to expound on what a stubborn, pig-headed idiot you are. Whether you're there or not."

He attempted a smile though the hairs pulled about his mouth. "You're not ashamed?"

"No, I'm getting used to waking up without any clothes on where people can simply walk by and look their fill." She deliberately misunderstood the question. "I'm starting to wonder why bother with clothing at all."

"Then my plan is working." He answered making her laugh.

Silence settled between them then and she let it linger, let it touch her before kissing it goodbye. "Tell me about that day."

His gaze fell away from hers. "The day I murdered the Callier family isn't something I like to talk about."

She shook her head letting her touch fall away from him as she stepped back and finished lacing up and buckling her clothing on. "No. Not that one. Tell me about the day Blackwall died. The real Blackwall."

His gaze returned to the fire. "I wasn't lying when I told you before that I didn't kill Blackwall…" He began in tones devoid of emotion.

"Argh, no!" She cut him off again shaking her head. "I'm doing this badly. I'm sorry. I want to know what you were thinking that day. What you were feeling. Not what happened, I believe you about that. About all of that. I want to understand what you were thinking. Why taking Blackwall's identity and place became your choice."

For a long time he was silent, staring into the fire and with a sigh she tossed her hands, moving back toward the bedding to begin packing it up.

"I remembered the man I had been." His low rumbling voice carried across the camp. "The Captain who had honor and respect and the loyalty of his soldiers. I remembered the angry bastard I became. How I arrogantly believed I could play the Great Game without any consequences. I remembered the mercenary I became who kept trying to get killed on the jobs I took and when that didn't happen, tried to drink my pay so I wouldn't have to remember what a damn coward I was."

Slowly she sank down on the mussed bedroll and looked at him, afraid to speak and risk breaking the spell that allowed him to speak.

"I remembered thinking I could change it all by becoming a Grey Warden. My past would be wiped clean. I could be the man I once had been…maybe even a better one." He flipped the cakes into a bowl and then put two more in their place to cook. "When Blackwall died saving my life, I thought it was one more death on my hands. The world would still have a good, decent man if he hadn't crossed my path. I wondered if I was being punished for what I'd done and if so, why this way? Why not just kill me and be done?" He still didn't look at her, didn't seem to be speaking to anyone in particular. "I thought about ending it there. No more suffering. No more good people dying for my cowardice. Then I thought the best way to do it would be chasing those darkspawn down into the tunnels and taking as many of the bastards out with me as I could before they killed me."

She flinched, swallowing back the words of denial she wanted to speak, forcing herself to listen to what was being said.

"I could have a Grey Warden's death, if I couldn't have a Grey Warden's life." He continued, still fascinated by the griddle cakes cooking. "That's when it occurred to me that I could still have a Grey Warden's life. I could be Blackwall. I could go where no one knew the difference. Grow a beard to hide behind. I could leave Thom Rainier and his cowardice behind forever. That's what I did."

"Did you think you could pull it off?" She asked quietly.

"Honestly? Yes." He still didn't look at her. "I've always had a clever tongue. You learn quickly if you want to rise to any rank in the Orlesian army how to bend the truth to suit you. How the best lies are the ones that mostly aren't." He slid the cakes into the bowl with the others and then rose to carry it and another full of sausage to her. "You keep things close to the truth, the lie becomes more difficult to see."

"I always thought you were a terrible liar and some things you just didn't want to talk about." She admitted taking the bowl and setting them on the bedding between them. "That was why it was such a shock to learn not only was Warden Blackwall a lie...a huge one…but no one had caught on."

"One of life's little ironies." He said, his words bitter. "The more I settled into the lie of being Warden Blackwall, the more I hated lying about it."

She reached out a hand pulling him to sit next to her. "You should eat, too." She said quietly.

He reached for the wineskin instead and took a long drink. "I spent most of my time wandering about. Helping the little people who were getting crushed in the war. Word spread and it made the lie more solid. That's what I was doing when this beautiful goddess called my name as I was preparing conscripts for a fight."

She laughed at that. "You looked so angry that day. I didn't even know why. Just that you were damn quick with a sword and shield and damn grumpy."

He smiled at her taking the bowl she offered him. "I was used to playing things low-key. Keeping away from those who might question my being Blackwall. I wasn't expecting anyone to come looking for Blackwall and I certainly wasn't expecting you."

Some of her humor faded. "You tried to keep me at a distance." She murmured plucking at one of the cakes with her fingers.

He studied her fingers for a long moment. "Do you regret pushing it?"

She looked at him. "Do you? A good argument can be made that I ruined your life, the life you had planned. The atonement you'd chosen."

For a long moment he was silent and then he shook his head, smiling at her. "There's no more lies. You know the best and the worst of me. You have no idea how freeing that is. How it feels."

There was a shadow in his blue eyes and she reached out, cupping his cheek. "How that must terrify you." She said quietly.

He leaned into her touch. "When I'm with you, I'm stronger. I can be a better man."

"Thom, you are a better man." She leaned closer to him. "You have been for some time and you did it all without even knowing me."

"And yet the first chance I had, I ran again." He looked away from her, refusing her touch.

She inhaled a deep breath. "I was asking…no, let's be honest, I was demanding things from you that you couldn't give me, Thom. That you can't give me."

"I can give you love." The words were almost desperate, as if some deeper fear of his had just been given voice. "I can give you protection. You and the child. I can…"

She cupped his cheeks and kissed him, silencing him. "Thom, can you give me your happiness? That's all I want for you. To be happy."

"I don't deserve…"

"You do." She countered the old argument. "If you can't be happy with me, Thom, then tell me where you can be happy and I'll make sure you get there. You liked the sea. You liked wandering the world simply doing what good you could and moving on. I can…"

"No." The word surged from him, growing in strength. "No. I'm not happy when I'm not with you. I'm fucking miserable."

She gave a half shrug. "Then I can go with you. Wander with you."

He laughed at that. "Do you honestly think the Inquisition will let you go?"

Her gaze narrowed. "I think they'll learn the hard way why they should." A hard edge blunted her tones and she lifted her chin as if in preparation for a fight.

Laughing, he gave her a long kiss. "I'd almost pay to see that." He said and prompted her to eat with a nudge toward her plate. "No, I think that part of my life is done. There's no more lies left, save the one where Thom Rainier is dead."

"I'm not apologizing for that again." She mumbled through a mouth full of food.

"I'm not asking you to." He countered. "And I don't recall you apologizing for it the first time."

"Apologizing implies that I'm sorry. I'm not." She retorted. "Given the same circumstances, I would do the same thing again." She fiercely chewed on a bit of sausage for a moment and then looked at him. "You're mine. The only way I will ever let you go is if you ask it. Or if you can't get your shit together and figure out that we are better together than apart. I am strong, Thom. Strong enough to let you go if you want to, strong enough to walk away if you can't figure this out and I am most definitely strong enough to help you carry this burden."

He was silent a long moment. "Can't you see how much I hate that my past even touches you? Taints you?"

"You fucked up, Thom. Badly." She stated in bald tones. "It isn't going to go away. Ever. No matter what name you take. You have two choices. Let me stand by you, share this with you or you can walk away and leave me behind. I won't chase you. I won't beg you to stay and I most certainly won't wait for you to come back."

He shook his head. "If I had just taken that chevalier up on his offer, I could stand before you a proud man."

She snorted. "And probably an arrogant one who thought a mere snap of his fingers would get me in his bed." She squinted at him, studying him. "There probably wouldn't be a beard, either. That's a deal breaker, that."

A wry laugh was wrung from him. "You are incredible." He said, his eyes full of her.

"Sometimes. And sometimes I'm worse than a darkspawn with PMS." She leaned closer to him. "You give me patience on my bad days and I'll give you the same on yours?"

"And if we're both having a bad day?" He asked humorously.

"Sex." She answered promptly. "Lots and lots of sex where you make those growly, grunting noises and I repeat the word 'more' over and over again in different pitches and volumes."

Laughing, he wrapped an arm about her. "I will never be good enough for you."

"You keep saying that and someday I might believe it." She warned him but curved against him.

For a long time there was silence as they continued to eat breakfast then she looked at him with a slight frown. "How did you find me? I was certain you'd head for Denerim. Or the Storm Coast. I tried to go the opposite direction from you."

"You did." He agreed handing the waterskin over to her. "I did head to the Storm Coast. I stayed in a brothel where the owner owed me…Warden Blackwall…a favor."

She froze, staring at him, her expression a whirl of emotion. "Oh, _do_ tell." Her voice was sickly sweet.

"Spent a week just drinking." He continued. "Well, staring more at the drink than actually drinking it. Tessa…the owner…said I looked so miserable I was driving her customers back to their husbands and wives." He tested a water sack to judge how much remained, not really paying attention to the incensed woman near him. "She offered to bring a smile to my face, as a favor at no charge."

"What a wonderful humanitarian!" She cooed with biting sarcasm.

He finally glanced over at her. "Be nice."

"You're telling me you shacked up with a prostitute and I'm supposed to be nice?" Disbelieving, she stared at him.

"I wasn't with her, she was a friend." He growled back. "She said it was pretty clear I was missing someone. I told her the woman I loved was incredible and wonderful and that I wasn't…"

"You say those words and I will throw sharp pointy things at you." She cut him off and began poking at her food with a vicious jab of her knife. "I will…"

"That I wasn't but half a man when I wasn't with her." He overrode her protests, his voice growing louder. "She said I might as well go back, then, since half a man wasn't of use to anyone and that's when I figured it out." He continued, his voice quieter this time as he carefully took the knife away from her. "If I was half a man without you, it didn't matter which man it was, Thom Rainier or Warden Blackwall. And if it didn't matter which man I was when I wasn't with you, it didn't matter what man I was when I was with you so long as it wasn't either of them."

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish and she gave a slight shake of her head before finally speaking. "I have no idea what you just said."

He laughed then and again she was struck at how easy he seemed. How some burden seemed to be gone from his shoulders.

"I missed you." He set the bowl aside and cupped her cheeks in his hands. "I thought I needed to find out what kind of man I am when I'm not with you. Turned out, he's a miserable fuck no one likes, including me."

"Well, apparently he was charming enough to get offered a freebee from a prostitute." She pointed out and he laughed again before taking a long sip of her lips, nuzzling at them until her body began to curve against him once more.

"I missed you." He said again once he'd pulled back. "If I wasn't a whole man without you, the answer seemed a bit obvious. So I decided to head back to Skyhold. Where you weren't." He returned the bowl of food to her once more and motioned for her to eat.

"Hmm. Yes. That." She murmured. "I took a vacation from being Inquisitor. And Herald of Andraste."

"I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner." He said without judgment. "So what is the plan?"

She tilted her head studying him. "I was going to Honnleath." She answered. "I was thinking about finding a cottage to just spend a few weeks, maybe months in."

He nodded thoughtfully, his gaze patient on her. "Got room for one more in that cottage?"

Tears sparked her eyes and she shifted close enough to lean against his strong shoulder. "Thom, I'll always make room for you."

He smiled down at her. "I know."

Stunned, she looked up…and this time she saw it. He did believe she loved him. The confidence was there in his eyes, on his face. The security.

She started crying and he frowned.

"It's the baby." She said waving a hand in dismissal as she tried to control herself. "I do it all the time. It's really annoying."

"Maybe you should lie down, then. Rest. Maybe that'll make it stop." He said the words with a completely sober look on his face, but she recognized the glint in his eyes.

"Rest?" She repeated.

He gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "Yes. Better if you're naked. Less constricting clothes is always good."

She laughed, her smile flirty and inviting. "I'm in no rush to get to Honnleath. It will be there when we get there, so right now we can 'rest' all we want."

Thom glanced about. "It's a good spot. Protected. Hunting's good. I saw a stream not too far that I could fish meals from."

"We've never just had time for the two of us together." She agreed, encouraging. "Why not now?"

"I'd like that." He smiled at her. "You'll be fine? The child, too?"

"With you, yes." She agreed.


	10. Chapter 10

"No, we are not naming the child Hetron if it's a boy."

She burst into giggles rolling against his chest as he prodded the coals in the fire with a long stick. "But it's okay if it's a girl name, right?"

"Are you determined to make the child hate us?" He countered shifting a leg until she was mostly leaning across his lap.

"Don't tell me you've never thought what you'd name a strapping son or a darling daughter of your own." She adjusted until she was comfortable and able to look up at him at the same time.

He laughed, the sound low and rumbling like thunder. "You're the only woman mad enough to want me to be the father."

"Lucky, you mean." She countered in an almost daring tone.

Amused, he bent over and gave her a lingering kiss. "Aye. I am." After a long, pleasant moment, he pulled back. "We're still not naming whichever one of them it is Hetron."

She snickered and gave a one shoulder shrug that meant nothing.

"Fine. We name the child Hetron, we get Sera as a nanny." He countered.

The humor in her expression fled between one blink of the eye and another. "Are you insane? We'd leave her to watch the child and we'd come back to a nug or something else she'd traded for."

"Hunh. I was thinking we'd come back and the child would be painted blue…because reasons." He looked down at her. "You're right, your scenario is much more likely."

"I'm so making Cullen change a diaper, though." Her quirky humor was back in full force. "Maybe even on the war table."

"That I would like to see." He set the stick aside and wrapped his arms about her tighter.

They were both quiet, just enjoying each other and the night, when he finally stirred and spoke.

"We'll have company soon, most like."

"They've been more patient than I thought, Cullen especially given how we've tormented him." A snicker of wicked delight had her lips curving at the memory. "We had almost an entire week to ourselves." This time the words were said with a resigned sound.

He glanced at her. "Wasn't sure you knew the Commander and his men were there."

"Oh, I suspected a couple of days ago." She reassured him. "I knew for certain when I started waking up with a blanket on."

He laughed and leaned over for a kiss. "They will find you, wherever you go." He pointed out.

Sighing she brushed her hair away from her forehead. "I know. What do you want, Thom?"

"You. The child." He said instantly. "Where doesn't matter so much."

"I did good work as the Inquisitor." She said after a moment's pause. "I could still do good work."

"Lot to be done." He agreed.

"I miss Skyhold." She finally admitted.

"Honnleath can always be a backup plan." He said amiably enough.

Her laughter didn't quite hide the sound of very deliberately noisy footsteps coming closer. "Do you think Cullen has finally realized that each time he approaches we start having sex on purpose to drive him away?"

"Maker, I hope not." Thom breathed with a heartfelt sigh that sent her into peals of laughter.

"Yes, he did realize." The man himself answered in tight tones. "Blessed Andraste, you'd think you'd have gotten bored by now."

Both of them stared at the Inquisition Commander as if he were insane.

"We have got to get you a girlfriend, Cullen." She said with true pity.

"Tessa seemed mighty fond of you…" Thom agreed with a nod.

"No." Cullen stated in flat tones but the anger in his face didn't last. "I am sorry, Inquisitor, but matters back at Skyhold require your immediate attention. I gave you as long as I could."

A sweet smile curved her lips. "I know, Cullen. Thank you." She sighed looking around the camp that had been such a happy place for her. "In the morning, then?"

"First light, if possible." Cullen agreed with nod. "I'll have your escort ready to go when you are." He drew a small leather pack from his side handing it to her. "I asked one of the healers if they had something to ease the morning sickness and they provided this."

Surprised, she took the bag. "I wasn't aware you knew." She said but didn't seem upset by the matter.

"When you took to your room after his departure we had healers assess you." Cullen ignored the glare she sent his way. "We wanted to make sure you weren't seriously ill. The healers informed us your vomiting was likely something else entirely and suggested you were with child." A disgusted look crossed his face. "One even thought I might be the father. I stopped that quickly enough by telling her I wasn't and that if she wanted to know who was she could ask the Maker because it was no one else's business."

"Which would be why you said nothing to me about it at Tessa's." Thom rumbled, looking at the Commander with a pointed look.

Cullen met that look without a qualm. "It wasn't my place." He stated.

"Doesn't matter." She cut through the tension. "Thank you, Cullen."

"You'll both be coming back?" Cullen looked directly at Thom, his expression unreadable.

"Aye." Thom nodded.

"There are plenty of pilgrims that arrive daily with tales of bandits or blight creatures or other difficulties. I imagine someone will need to address the problems." Cullen said sitting next to the fire across from them. "I'm far too busy, of course."

She looked at Thom who was watching after the Commander.

"I'd need a small crew of soldiers capable of moving quickly if needed." Thom said quietly and then looked at her. "It might mean travelling."

"As long as I get the option of going with you, I don't care." She gave a one shoulder shrug.

"I've recently added an ex-soldier from Orlais…" Cullen began, the words addressed to Thom but his gaze was steadily on the Inquisitor

"No." She cut him off in flat tones. "I'd prefer that ex-soldier be stationed at Griffin Keep."

Thom glanced at her for a long study and then his blue eyes moved to Cullen. "Who is it?"

"Thom, there is no…" She broke off her own words, frowning, her thoughts fierce as the argument going on in her mind took a physical form on her face. Finally she grimaced and shook her head. "Cyril Mornay." She rushed the name out as if not sure she would speak given time to think.

Expressionless, Thom studied her for a long moment and then his gaze moved to Cullen. "Agreed."

Her mouth opened and she almost spoke once and twice before shoving herself to her feet. "I need a minute." She snarled and stalked out of the camp.

"She worries for you." Cullen said quietly.

"You've no idea how humbling that is." Thom answered in a low voice.

"I do deserve you!" Came a fierce shout from the trees causing both men to laugh.

"How is Mornay?" Thom asked into the quiet.

"He's seen some hard times." Cullen agreed bluntly. "I'm not sure what went on between him and the Inquisitor but he speaks highly of her. Almost worshipfully. He has no idea that you're still alive."

"I would prefer…" This was another shout from the trees that was quickly cut off and followed by a thumping noise as if a branch was being banged against a tree trunk.

Thom stared down at the hot coals of the fire. "Another chance. To make right what I messed up."

"Not many get a chance at redemption." Cullen's gaze was removed, almost turned inward before he focused on the older man. "Take this one. Prove not only to yourself, but to everyone else, that past mistakes need not cage a person. Not forever."

Nodding slowly, Thom poked at the coals. "I will." He said, the words a vow.

"He's searching. Like you were." The Inquisitor spoke returning to the fireside. She tossed two pieces of a rather thick branch in the wood pile drawing a smile from Cullen. "We can help find the answers."

"I'm glad you're not mad at me." The Commander said with a shake of his head.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm still considering it."

"Full plate mail." Cullen countered. "Up several flights of stairs to your bedroom."

Thom glanced back and forth between them, the Inquisitor very determinedly not speaking and an almost smug look on the Commander. "Well, it's a unique form of chastity belt, I'll say that."

Cullen snorted his laughter. "As if I'd dare." The words were full of derision as he shook his head and stood. "I'll leave you for the night and plan for breaking camp at first light."

"First light…maybe lunch." The Inquisitor gave an uncaring shrug. "If there's a great deal of growling noises going on as you arrive…"

"Don't hail us, we'll hail you." Thom finished and Cullen still shaking his head quickly departed.

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

"Home sweet home." She grinned looking up at the tall walls of Skyhold as they began to enter the small village in the valley just below. "I wonder if they've managed to fix that wall in the corridor next to the war room yet."

"Leliana's here." Cullen said abruptly, scowling.

"Josephine, too." Thom agreed. "That doesn't bode well."

The two women quickly joined them as the group was noticed and villagers began to come closer.

"We've a problem." Leliana said abruptly with no hint of greeting.

The Inquisitor was looking about as pilgrims came closer, many smiling at her with joy and happiness. "What's going on?" She asked in wary tones.

"Word of your being with child has spread." Josephine began in her diplomatic voice.

"As have rumors about who the father is." Leliana continued.

Cullen paled. "I told them I was not the father!" He stated in adamant tones.

"We know." Leliana soothed, sparing him a look. "Unfortunately, you also said that the Maker was."

He stared at the spymaster in disbelief. "I did not! I told them to ask the Maker because He knew and it wasn't their business!"

"Unfortunately, they chose to interpret it as you saying the Maker was the father of the Herald's child." Josephine stated with sympathy.

Thom burst out laughing in great guffaws.

"That's not funny!" The Inquisitor snapped at him, outraged.

"Yes, yes it is." Thom contradicted.

"Fix this!" She snarled back at her advisers, glaring at the pilgrims who were drawing closer. "My child has a very definite, _very_ flawed, very _human_ father!"

"Maybe we should call them Hetron after all." Thom continued, still chuckling. "The child starts getting bigger than their britches, that will keep them humble."

She smacked him on the shoulder of his gambeson armor. "You're not helping!"

Thom reached out an arm and snagged her off her horse, dragging her onto his saddle before him. "How's this for help then?" He asked and cupped her cheek carefully in his large hand, tilting her head to the side and then studying the position for half a breath as if to make sure she was aligned properly. Then he closed his mouth over hers, stroking deep.

Cullen rolled his eyes nudging his horse forward. "I've seen too much of that recently. I'll be in my office catching up on reports." He passed through the now very confused pilgrims.

Leliana laughed gently. "That's one way of stopping the rumor."

"Oh, my." Josephine was unabashedly watching the kiss continue on. "I believe that will put the rumor to rest quite nicely. Only…"

The spymaster glanced over. "What?"

Josephine leaned closer, whispering. "How does he kiss and breathe through all that hair?"


End file.
